One pot, single step, room temperature dielectrophoretic deposition of gold nanoparticles clusters on polyethylene terephthalate substrate.

The major challenge of plastic electronics is the deposition of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) on flexible substrates at room temperature. Here, we show fast, single step, room temperature deposition of AuNPs on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and biaxially oriented PET (BoPET) substrate by employing dielectrophoresis. The deposition has been carried out using two-electrode system, with BoPET (or PET) and metallic (Pt or stain steel) mesh, under an AC signal of 20 kHz and 20 V peak-to-peak (V(pp)) (signal for PET is 6 V(pp) and 6 kHz).