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In this work a novel colour-difference measurement method for the quality evaluation of copper deposited on a polymer is proposed. Laser-induced selective activation (LISA) was performed onto the surface of the polycarbonate/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (PC/ABS) polymer by using nanosecond laser irradiation. The laser activated PC/ABS polymer was copper plated by using the electroless copper plating (ECP) procedure. The sheet resistance measured by using a four-point probe technique was found to decrease by the power law with the colour-difference of the sample images after LISA and ECP procedures. The percolation theory of the electrical conductivity of the insulator conductor mixture has been adopted in order to explain the experimental results. The new proposed method was used to determine an optimal set of the laser processing parameters for best plating conditions.Polymer-based electrical devices are used in different areas such as optical communications, biomedicine, and automotive industry 1,2 . Formation of the electrical circuits on polymers is important for these devices. There are many techniques called "selective metallization" to produce a circuit on the surface of polymers: direct chemical plating 3 , laser direct structuring (ablation and writing) 4,5 , laser direct imaging 6 and laser-induced selective activation (LISA) [7][8][9][10][11] .LISA was developed for selective metallization of polymers for three-dimensional moulded interconnecting devices. This method contains single step: laser structuring of the polymer surface. As a result of the laser structuring, sponge-like and nano-porous structures are created to improve the adhesion strength of the metal to the polymer. After LISA process the metal layer is deposited by the electroless copper plating (ECP) procedure. The ECP contains of three-steps: activation of the laser-structured surface with palladium colloidal activator; cleaning with distilled water; electroless deposition of copper layer on the activated sample. In the activation procedure, palladium atoms are trapped in a porous sponge like structures on the polymer surface. Cleaning with distilled water removes unwanted palladium from flat unstructured polymer and leaves it confined in the poriferous surface. The copper fills all the openings in the polymer and a porous, rough metal film is deposited during the final step of the ECP. Finally, after both, LISA and ECP procedures, the copper layer is deposited selectively only onto the laser structured areas while unstructured polymer is not coated with the metal deposition.The electrical and optical properties of the semi-transparent films were investigated in numerous works [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] . However, the analysis of the sheet resistance dependence on the optical transmittance can be applied only for films with the thicknesses smaller than the absorption depth. Such kind of measurements cannot be realized with a relatively thick metal layer on the porous opaque substrate.The characterization of the cross section of...

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Digital image processing of Cu layer on MWCNT/PP nanocomposite substrate after laser direct structuring and autocatalytic plating reveals percolation effect.