An Investigation of Electrochemical Nucleation and Growth

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AbstractProposal Title: An Investigation of Electrochemical Nucleation and GrowthProposal Number: CTS-0122909Principal Investigator: Alan WestInstitution: Columbia UniversityA collaborative effort to study nucleation and growth during the early stages of thin film growth by electrodeposition will be carried out. This work will build on a recently developed mathematical model of electrochemical nucleation that allows inclusion of phenomena not previously considered. The model will be used in the simulation of difficult cases, such as copper deposition from pyrophosphate bath, where conventional models fail. Simulated results will be compared with both measured current transients and atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging of deposited nuclei. Instantaneous nucleation will involve rotating disk experiments to characterize growth processes as a function of overpotential, cupric ion concentration, pyrophosphate concentration, pH and convective conditions. These results are expected to provide mechanistic information and growth rate constants. Progressive nucleation will be pursued with chronoamperometry and AFM measurements on gold cyanide baths. This work could have significant impact outside of electrodeposition, and areas such as emulsions, aerosols, micelles, and crystallization could also benefit from this project. This work may find more immediate application in microfabrication processes.