Communication Macromolecular Rapid Communications wileyonlinelibrary.com (1 of 6) 1600564 © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim DOI: 10.1002/marc.201600564 (compared to thermally induced reactions), and obviate the need for chemical reagents or volatile organic compounds. The generally small size of a lamp compared to an oven can minimize the foot print of the process when adapted to industry. A number of regular and spatially modulated pho- tochemical transformations at the interface of various mate- rials have been demonstrated. [8–10] One of the most general photochemical approaches utilizes surfaces presenting pho- toactive compounds that can insert into the CH bonds of an adsorbed polymer film, circumventing the need to syn- thesize a polymer with traditional functional groups. [11] A number of photoactive interfaces based on photogenerated ketyl radicals, nitrenes, and carbenes have been shown to covalently bind polymers to the surface of a variety of substrates including glass, [12] silicon, [6,7] gold, [13] titanium, [14] aluminum, [15] and polymers. [16] Among aromatic ketones, benzophenone, [17] phthalimide, [7] and binaphthyl ketone [18] have been used to construct surfaces that covalently bind a wide variety of preexisting polymers. Similarly, carbenes and nitrenes have been photogenerated on surfaces derivatized with azidobenzoyl, aryl trifluoromethyl and ethyl diazirine, [19] azidoformate, [20] aryl sulfonyl azide, [21] and diazomethyl- carbonyl. [22] The photogenerated surfaces have been used to immobilize numerous polymers in a variety of applications including carbohydrate microarrays, [16,23] protein patterning, [11] lipid bilayers, [24] low surface tension substrates, [25] nanoparticle patterning, [26] and coatings for biomedical devices, [27] and have provided a This report demonstrates the electroless deposition of Ni onto micropatterns of poly (acrylic acid) (PAA) photografted to phthalimide-terminated self-assembled monolayers (SAMs). PAA is spin-coated onto phthalimide SAMs and covered with a photomask. UV irradiation selectively binds PAA to exposed regions of the surface, allowing PAA on unexposed regions to be rinsed off. A Pd catalyst is then selectively adsorbed to regions of the surface where PAA is bound. The adsorbed cat- alyst selectively initiates Ni plating upon immersion of the substrate into a Ni(SO 4 ) bath. Electroless Deposition of Nickel on Photografted Polymeric Microscale Patterns Gregory T. Carroll,* Jeffrey R. Lancaster, Nicholas J. Turro, Jeffrey T. Koberstein,* Angela Mammana Dr. G. T. Carroll, Dr. J. R. Lancaster, Prof. N. J. Turro † Department of Chemistry Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA E-mail: greg.carroll@us.sunstar.com Prof. N. J. Turro, Prof. J. T. Koberstein Department of Chemical Engineering Columbia University New York, NY 10027, USA E-mail: jk1191@columbia.edu Dr. A. Mammana Department of Chemistry University of Dayton Dayton, OH 45469, USA 1. Introduction Polymers thin films are versatile materials for controlling surfaces properties. [1–3] It is desirable that macromolecular films used in technological devices are durable and resist desorption in a variety of environments. The stability of physically adsorbed films can be enhanced by crosslinking the polymer chains. [4,5] When only a monolayer of macro- molecules is needed, stabilization can be accomplished by creating a chemical bond between the polymer film and the surface it coats. [6,7] Among the various strategies to sta- bilize polymer films, photochemical methods provide clean and convenient approaches, minimizing both heating of the underlying substrate and power consumption † Deceased. Macromol. Rapid Commun. 2017, , 1600564