Electroless deposition of Ni-P on a silicon surface

The present article concerns the metallization of silicon substrates by deposition of the nickel-phosphorus alloy produced by an autocatalytic chemical process. The deposition electrolyte is composed of a metal salt, a reducing agent (sodium hypophosphite), a complexing agent (sodium citrate) and a buffer (ammonium acetate). The deposition could only be carried out after activation of the silicon by fixing catalytic species on its surface. The immersion of the silicon samples in palladium chloride made it possible to produce relatively thick and regular Ni-P coatings. The immersion time was optimized. The activation of Si was characterized by XPS and the Ni-P coating by XPS and SEM. The electrochemical study did not show any real mechanism changes compared to the Ni-P deposition on a conductive surface.