Pattern recognition in oxides thin-film electrodeposition: Printed circuits

A novel method for a low-voltage electrodeposition of insulating oxide sol-gel thin films on complex conducting patterns is described. By this method gold meshes and printed chips were selectively coated with titania and zirconia thin films. This method solves a classical problem in the thin-films world: dip-coating, spin-coating, spraying without masks-all cannot be used for selective coating of a complex conductive pattern, because these methods do not differentiate between conducting vs non-conducting areas. The newly developed method provides an electrochemical pattern recognition, which solves this problem.