In addition to this question I wonder if is it possible to coat Ni itself on a glass substrate?

I am not your situations but I would like to recommend you a literature which may cover the answer you want to know.

:Glass-Metal Joining in Nuclear

Environment: The State of the Art

If you mean metallic nickel coating, it is posible to obtain three types of coatings by electroless deposition technique:

- pure Ni, when hydrazine is used as a reducing agent;

- Ni-P, when sodium/pottassium hypophosphite is a reducing agent;

- Ni-B, when boron compounds are a reducing agent.

All of them can be produced on the glass surface.

Hii Abishek,

What do you mean by "coat Ni IONS over the surface"? If you tell us more !!!

Electroless metal (like Ni or Cu) deposition is possible on glass substrates. 

It is possible to obtain Ni coating on glasses using a reducing agent . But it is metallic Ni, not ionic

I vote for electroless deposition. It is the easiest of all and at much lower substrate temperature. Evaporation (thermal or e-beam) would be my second choice.

Surface may be damaged prior to coating to enhance adhesion. It can be achieved using low energy heavy ion beams that will induce damage in the desired surface region

you can sputter nickel using an rf magnetron then impregnate them onto the surface of your glass samples... for the optimized parameters there a lot of literature on this, usually you just need to watch out for the temperature of the substrate and the rf power 

Dear Philip,

I just skipped your answer. You say " If you don't want to use galvanic coating". But as far as I know a glass substrate is nonconductor. Then you can not use galvanic coating.    

I want to deposit Nickel ions (read again... ions... not nickel metal or electroless nickel etc.) and I want to know if there is a way of depositing them using some solution(s) or liquid(s). Basically it is ok even if the nickel ion is at the end of a functional group or something. I need to use it for something that attaches specifically to nickel ions and not nickel atoms.

@philip: yes, nickel ions on the open side, and a connecting molecule/complex to glass. and ... i dont know about the dip coating process...if it answers my query, please elaborate further

@ Philip : If the nonconductor sample is not treated for metal deposition, it is not possible to coat its surface by galvanic coating. This is why the Pd (or other) seed, or other surface treatments are used.The pre-coated nonconductor surface then can be coated by galvanic process since it is needed to pass the current.through the coated layer on the surface of nonconductor sample for further metal plating.      

Abishek Hariharan

Did you end up finding a solution to this problem?

I am looking to do the same thing as you are describing...

Following..