Au and Ag sputter deposition on printer paper

We study metal-coated paper for low cost sensor applications. Sputter deposition is used to coat commercially available stationary printer paper with Au or Ag thin films. Two kinds of substrates are used: copy paper and glossy photo paper. The surface morphology, coating structure and electrical resistivity of the samples is studied. We find that after deposition of a nominally 100 nm thick metal layer the templates retain their initial morphology, which is fibre-like at the copy paper and flake-like at the photo paper. The metal-coated paper is conductive in both cases, with resistivity a few times higher than the bulk value. The photo paper samples have lower resistivity than the copy paper ones. Moreover, no observable resistivity variation is observed after 8 weeks of room temperature storage in a desiccator.Funding from the E.C. through a FP7-ICT project (Grant No. 318144) and MINECO (ref.: MAT2014-59772-C2-1-P) is acknowledged.Peer reviewe