Well-defined silver conductive pattern fabricated on polyester fabric by screen printing a dopamine surface modifier followed by electroless plating.

Herein, we develop a novel method to fabricate silver conductive patterns on polyester fabric (PET) by screen printing dopamine (DOPA) tracks first, then reducing silver ions with polydopamine (PDA) tracks, which are self-polymerized from dopamine (DOPA), and finally electroless plating. Polydopamine (PDA) definitely adheres to the surface of the fabric and reduces the silver ions to initiate the electroless plating. This process is confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The conductivity of the well-defined silver patterns on the PET fabric is 0.86 Ω sq-1. In addition, the electronic patterns fabricated via the proposed method maintains their function under cyclic bending and Scotch®-tape tests, which indicates their great potential for application in flexible devices and wearable electronics.