Is nano metal plating commercially available yet?

[Topher925]

Not to long ago there was a lot of hubbub about nano plating and the low costs that comes with it. I was curious if anyone knows whether or not nano plating is commercially available yet or if its still in the research phase? I've got a lot of applications for gold and silver plating and would love to be able to make parts that didn't cost a small fortune.

 

[Gokul43201]

Details please?

You want to coat Au/Ag (how thick?), on some substrate (what material, what dimensions, how many of them?). What's your budget, and what specs do you have for the film quality - allowed porosity, surface roughness, film thickness variation, compositional purity, crystallinity, anything else?

Also, do you have a reference for the kind of nano-plating that you'd heard about?

 

[Topher925]

I replied to this last week but apparently my post disappeared. Weird.

You want to coat Au/Ag (how thick?), on some substrate (what material, what dimensions, how many of them?). What's your budget, and what specs do you have for the film quality - allowed porosity, surface roughness, film thickness variation, compositional purity, crystallinity, anything else?

Preferably Au but Ag might work as well. Thickness doesn't really matter. A few nanometers would be sufficient if done at a good enough quality. Substrate material would be aluminum, either 6061 or 7076. Budget would be around $300 for 10 or so 5x5x0.5cm aluminum blocks. The porosity would need to be relatively low, I don't have an numbers off the top of my head. Surface roughness, film thickness variation, and crystallinity don't really matter. Compositional purity depends on the impurities that are in the plating material.