TY - JOUR
T1 - STM/AFM studies of the evolution of morphology of electroplated Ni/W alloys
AU - Zhu, L.
AU - Younes, O.
AU - Ashkenasy, N.
AU - Shacham-Diamand, Y.
AU - Gileadi, E.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors wish to thank Dr. D. Porath of the School of Physics, Tel-Aviv University for useful discussion and Dr. Y. Rosenberg of the Wolfson Center for Materials Research of TAU for performing the XRD analysis. Financial support from the Ministry of Science Sports and Fine Art is gratefully acknowledged.
PY - 2002/11/15
Y1 - 2002/11/15
N2 - The surface morphology evolution of Ni/W alloys was studied, as a function of the alloy composition. Using the modified plating baths developed in our laboratory recently, electroplated Ni/W alloys with different W content, in the range of 7-67atom percent (a/o), can be obtained. This was found to lead to different structures, ranging from polycrystalline fcc-Ni type structure to amorphous, followed by orthorhombic with increasing W content in the alloy. Powder XRD was studied to determine the crystal structures. Ex situ STM, AFM and SEM were used to study in detail the surface morphologies of the different alloys, and their evolution with increasing W content. The important findings are that a mixture of two crystalline forms can give rise to an amorphous structure. Hillocks that are usually a characteristic of epitaxial growth can also exist in the amorphous alloys. Oriented scratches caused by stress can also be formed. Up to 20a/o of W is deposited in the alloys in crystalline form, with the fcc-Ni type structure. Between 20 and about 40a/o an amorphous structure is observed, and above that an orthorhombic crystal structure is seen, which is characteristic of the NiW binary alloy. Careful choice of the composition of the plating bath allowed us to deposit an alloy containing 67a/o W, which corresponds to the composition NiW 2 .
AB - The surface morphology evolution of Ni/W alloys was studied, as a function of the alloy composition. Using the modified plating baths developed in our laboratory recently, electroplated Ni/W alloys with different W content, in the range of 7-67atom percent (a/o), can be obtained. This was found to lead to different structures, ranging from polycrystalline fcc-Ni type structure to amorphous, followed by orthorhombic with increasing W content in the alloy. Powder XRD was studied to determine the crystal structures. Ex situ STM, AFM and SEM were used to study in detail the surface morphologies of the different alloys, and their evolution with increasing W content. The important findings are that a mixture of two crystalline forms can give rise to an amorphous structure. Hillocks that are usually a characteristic of epitaxial growth can also exist in the amorphous alloys. Oriented scratches caused by stress can also be formed. Up to 20a/o of W is deposited in the alloys in crystalline form, with the fcc-Ni type structure. Between 20 and about 40a/o an amorphous structure is observed, and above that an orthorhombic crystal structure is seen, which is characteristic of the NiW binary alloy. Careful choice of the composition of the plating bath allowed us to deposit an alloy containing 67a/o W, which corresponds to the composition NiW 2 .
KW - AFM
KW - Alloy plating
KW - Amorphous alloys
KW - NiW alloy
KW - STM
KW - Tungsten alloy
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0037110927&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S0169-4332(02)00894-2
DO - 10.1016/S0169-4332(02)00894-2
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:0037110927
SN - 0169-4332
VL - 200
SP - 1
EP - 14
JO - Applied Surface Science
JF - Applied Surface Science
IS - 1-4
ER -