Metal plating additive, and method for plating substrates and products therefrom

A method for fabricating a rigid memory disk comprising,

• depositing in an autocatalytic plating bath an electroless nickel or nickel alloy coating on a substrate substantially avoiding co-deposition of non-metallic particles,
• plating the substrate with nickel or nickel alloy wherein a zeta potential of the autocatalytic plating bath renders the ionic character of both the non-metallic particles and the surface of the plated substrate anionic such that the particles and the surface repel one another in the autocatalytic plating bath, the autocatalytic plating bath having at least one reaction product additive from a mixture produced from the sulfation and esterification of a fatty acid or mixtures and salts thereof,
• wherein the at least one reaction product additive is represented by the formula
• wherein R1 is selected from the group consisting of OH, OCH3, OCH2CH3, C1-C7 alkyl, linear or branched;
• R2 is selected from the group consisting of H and C1-C7 alkyl, linear or branched;
• m is an integer ranging from 1 to about 5;
• n is an integer ranging from 2 to about 30;
• o is an integer ranging from 0 to about 10;
• M+ is a metal or pseudo metal ion or H+, and
• the zeta potential is between −40 and −150 mV.