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Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol.149, No.5, C268-C273, 2002
Galvanostatic pulse plating of bulk Cu-Al alloys on nickel electrodes from room-temperature chloroaluminate molten salts containing benzene
The galvanostatic pulse plating of bulk Cu-Al alloy films from solutions of copper(I) in the 60.0-40.0 mole percent aluminum chloride-1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride room-temperature molten salt mixed with 45.4% (v/v) benzene was investigated at a demountable nickel rotating disk electrode by using pulse current, superimposed-pulse current, and reverse-pulse current methods. The resulting alloy films were characterized by using scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and were compared to those prepared with conventional dc plating methods. Generally, the as-deposited surface morphology was greatly improved and the chloride contamination was decreased in those alloy electrodeposits prepared by using periodic current waveforms. This was especially true for some reverse-pulse current plating experiments, which led to deposits with no detectable chloride contamination. Cu-Al electrodeposits with specular surfaces containing approximately 4% atomic fraction aluminum were obtained by using superimposed-pulse current plating in which the superimposed current was equal in magnitude to the limiting current for the reduction of copper(I). The use of 1% (w/w) methyl t-butyl ether as a leveling agent to improve the deposit surface morphology was also investigated.