Abstract: Electrode fabrication on polymer substrates surface is very important for developing many devices such as flexible thin film transistors, large area displays, electronic tags and biochemical sensors etc. In this paper, we report on direct fabrication of copper electrodes on polymer substrate surface by molecular self-assembly technique. The process involved the UV-irradiation of the polyethylene naphthalate(PEN) surface to introduce carboxyl groups and subsequent adsorption of silver ions, which were then reduced by UV-irradiation to form silver particles as the seeds to catalyze chemical deposition of copper. Using a photomask, the copper electrodes could be successfully fabricated on the selected surface sites. So the obtained copper electrodes possess an electric resistivity of 5.063×10^-2 Ω·mm²/m, which is on the same order of magnitude as pure metal copper. This method is simple and convenient, which provides a very good way for fabricating electrodes on polymer substrate.

Key words: Self-assembly technique, Polymer, Electrode, Polyethylene naphthalate(PEN)