Progress of electroless amorphous and nanoalloy deposition: a review – Part 1

Abstract

The progress and longitudinal history of electroless plating from its discovery to its present development, from published research reports and, particularly, patents are discussed and reviewed in this paper. The progress of electroless plating can be divided into five stages: the discovery of electroless plating; the early stage of development; the period of slow growth; the period of rapid development; and the period of deeper, more fundamental development and nanoelectroless plating. The contents of each stage are described and discussed in detail. Investigating and understanding the history of electroless plating can not only make clearer the process of development and characteristics of electroless plating, but also clarify to some degree the scientific and technical direction of the process and its applications. In the current Part 1, the authors review the first three stages noted above and some details from the period of fast development including the wealth of information gathered from numerous studies on the properties of electroless deposits. Part 2, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Transactions, will deal with further studies from the period of rapid development, including large scale applications, ternary and multicomponent alloys and composites, the impressive developments in China, now the world’s biggest market in electroless nickel plating, and development of electroless Fe–B alloy plating, again much of which took place in Chinese laboratories. In addition, in Part 2, the authors will discuss what they consider to be a period of sustained deep and fundamental research into the theory and mechanism of electroless plating, and development of nanoelectroless plating.