Novel adhesion promoting agents for metallization of substrate surfaces

Method for plating a metal onto a substrate comprising the steps of

• i. contacting the substrate with a solution containing nanometer-sized particles having at least one attachment group bearing a functional chemical group suitable for binding to the substrate, and forming a layer of said nanometer-sized particles bound to at least a portion of a surface of the substrate;
• and thereafter
• ii. metal plating the substrate by applying a wet-chemical plating method,
• and wherein the layer of said nanometer-sized particles remain between the substrate surface and the plated metal,
• wherein the at least one attachment group has the general Formula (I)
• -B-L-FG (I),
• wherein B is a binding group, L is a linking group and FG is the functional chemical group, and
• wherein the binding group B represents
• a. —Si(R1R2)—, wherein R1 and R2 independently of each other represent alkoxy groups having from 1 to 12 carbon atoms, alkyl groups having from 1 to 12 carbon atoms, halogen atoms and a bond to oxygen atoms originating from the nanometer-sized particle and/or further attachment groups;
• or
• b. —CH2—R3—, —CO—NH—, —CO—O—, unsubstituted or substituted aryl, wherein R3 represents —CHOH—CH2—O—, —CHOH—CH2—;
• a linear unsubstituted or substituted hydrocarbon group having from 1 to 5 carbon atoms.