electroless copper and nickel–phosphorus plating || preface

© Woodhead Publishing Limited, 2011

Electroless deposition uses the chemical reaction between a reducing agent and a metal salt in a liquid solution so that the metal ion can be reduced to a metal atom on a substrate. Compared with electroplating, electroless plating can be plated uniformly over all surfaces, regardless of size, shape and electrical conductivity. The main applications of electroless copper deposits are in the printed circuit board manufacturing, very- or ultra-large scale integrated (VLSI/ULSI) technology, electromagnetic shielding and decorative plating. Electroless nickel–phosphorus deposits are used as protective and functional coatings, benefiting the chemical, oil and gas, automotive, electronics and the aerospace industries. Other metals can also be plated through the electroless route, but they are less widely used. Electroless deposits are an extremely active field of materials science research. In 2009 alone, included in the Science Citation Index, 529 research papers were published in international journals on the electroless topic, written by 1829 authors, from 489 institutions in 51 countries. Such researchers are targeted readers of this book. The last books devoted exclusively to electroless plating were all written before 1991:

• Chemical (electroless) Nickel Plating by G. G. Gawrilov, Portcullis Press, 1979, 189 pages

• Electroless Plating: fundamentals and applications edited by Glenn O. Mallory and Juan B. Hajdu, William Andrew Publishing/Noyes, 1990, 538 pages

• Electroless Nickel Plating by Wolfgang Riedel, Finishing Publications Limited and ASM International, 1991, 328 pages.

All three are authoritative books. The third one, by Riedel, was translated from German to English and Chinese. However, notwithstanding they do not include much on electroless copper, even electroless nickel R&D has grown enormously since 1991. Therefore, a book on the electroless subject is very much needed and we hope that this book will be welcomed by academics and industrialists alike.

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This book is intended to be a research monograph, cumulating the experience of many years’ research by the authors. It will include the more recent results, since 2000, but will also cover relevant, recent work by other researchers around the world. Since 1999, the authors have completed the following PhD projects:

• Processing and characterisation of electroless copper deposit (funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, EPSRC)

• Characterisation and modelling of the evolution of microstructure during thermal processing of electroless nickel–phosphorus depositions.

Other smaller projects include:

• Collaborative research in modelling the evolution of material microstructures (Royal Academy of Engineering, EPSRC, Invest NI and Royal Society)

• Electroplated and electroless copper deposits (Shipley Ronal)• Friction and wear characteristics of electroless Ni–P–SiC coated aluminium

cylinder liner (Royal Society).

The research from these projects has led to many paper publications. The two PhD theses and the research papers are the backbone of this book, but the underlying structure of the book will be based on the physical metallurgical phenomena of the electroless process. In addition, other researchers’ work is reviewed and the major results presented and discussed. Each of the three authors is a world authority in the electroless field. Among the 1153 research papers in electroless nickel published during 2002–2009, Keong and Sha are among the authors for the top ten most cited papers in the Science Citation Index, based on which data the journal impact factors are assembled. During 2006–2009, Sha has refereed, on invitation, 38 manuscripts for the top international archival journal in this subject, Surface and Coatings Technology. During 2006–2008, Wu’s electroless research has been presented in ten international conferences, symposia and meetings. These demonstrate the international standing of the author team for the book.

Computer-based modelling is a fast growing field in materials science, demonstrated by the large recent literature. The authors of this book are in a unique position, in their combined expertise in electroless research and model development. Though modelling is only a part of it, this book will fill a big gap of the book literature in the application of modelling techniques in electroless depositions, both hot topics in contemporary materials studies, whilst at the same time document latest research in this area. A large chunk of this latest research will be from the authors themselves, based on their world leading position in this area, but, as stated before, the book will also

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cover important relevant research by others. A lot of the microstructural modelling is about phase transformations and kinetics. There will be coverage of artificial neural network research in the book applied to electroless depositions. Readers should be interested in this. The book has a clearly defined audience. It is primarily intended for researchers studying electroless deposits. The materials expert, however, will be able to learn modelling and apply this increasingly important technique in their electroless materials research and development. As the statistics given earlier have shown, the research base in electroless plating and its application areas is huge, so we hope that this book will have a big impact. Combining modelling and electroless deposits into one book is the idea behind this book, which we think, is its strength and selling point. There is not any book covering the combination of electroless deposition and computer modelling at present. Computer modellers have many options on entire books that are devoted to the modelling techniques used in the book, but not applied to electroless depositions.

Wei ShaProfessor of Materials Science, Queen’s University Belfast, UK

Xiaomin WuMaterials innovation institute, The Netherlands

Kim Ghee KeongKulim, Kedah, Malaysia

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electroless copper and nickel–phosphorus plating || preface

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