Abstract
It has been generally accepted that metallic palladium nuclei are formed by the nucleation procedure of nonconducting substrates with stannous chloride and palladium chloride solutions. However, results of experiments on glass using radioactive tracers and ellipsometry have shown that no metallic palladium is present after the nucleation procedure. The results indicate that presumably a tin‐palladium complex, containing one palladium atom per two tin atoms is formed and that this initiates the nickel‐phosphorus deposition from a suitable electroless plating solution.