Investigation of the correlation between the electrochemical noise energy and the deposit structure

Abstract In this paper, the nickel electroplating processes at different depositing temperature and different current density have been monitored using electrochemical noise technique, and two new indices, the electroplating noise energy ED and the deposit energy Ex, are derived respectively from the depositing noise and the crystal face work function (Wj) to characterize the nickel deposit. The results showed that ED changes oppositely with Ex, the preferred orientation growth of nickel crystal plane with lower Wj corresponds to the lower Ex and higher ED, ie. ED can be used as a measurement to evaluate the preferential orientation of nickel deposits.