Stability analysis of branched silver electrodeposits: solid phase growth under a marginally stable regime

Crossover from compact to branched films in electrodeposition with surface diffusion

We study a model for thin film electrodeposition in which instability development by preferential adsorption and reduction of cations at surface peaks competes with surface relaxation by diffusion of the adsorbates. The model considers cations moving in a supported electrolyte, adsorption and reduction when they reach the film surface, and consequent production of mobile particles that execute activated surface diffusion, which is represented by a sequence of random hops to neighboring lattice sites with a maximum of G hop attempts (G≫1), a detachment probability ε<1 per neighboring particle, and a no-desorption condition. Computer simulations show the formation of a compact wetting layer followed by the growth of branched deposits. The maximal thickness z_{c} of that layer increases with G but is weakly affected by ε. A scaling approach describes the crossover from smooth film growth to unstable growth and predicts z_{c}∼G^{γ}, with γ=1/[2(1-ν)]≈0.43, where ν≈0.30 is the inverse of the dynamical exponent of the Villain-Lai-Das Sarma equation that describes the initial roughening. Using previous results for related deposition models, the thickness z_{c} can be predicted as a function of an activation energy for terrace surface diffusion and the temperature, and the small effects of the parameter ε are justified. These predictions are confirmed by the numerical results with good accuracy. We discuss possible applications, with a particular focus on the growth of multifuncional structures with stacking layers of different porosity.

Influence of Pinning Effects on the Electrochemical Formation of Silver Patterns in Agarose-Containing Sols and Gels

The formation of silver patterns via electrolysis from aqueous silver sulfate + x% w/v agarose sol and gel media, with and without supporting electrolyte, in a quasi-two-dimensional (2D) cylindrical cell at room temperature, is utilized as a reference system to investigate the complexity of pinning effects. From pattern morphology and electrochemical data, both delocalized and localized pinning in the bulk dominate the drift of the growth front, depending on the concentration of agarose in the heterogeneous media. Delocalized pinning results from mobile, small agarose aggregates at the growth front and from their accumulation by the front drift. For gels, localized pinning comes from their own percolated structure. A depinning/pinning transition is observed in going from sols to gels. The relative contribution of diffusion and advection in mass-transport-controlled silver electrodeposition depends on the plating bath composition. On the other hand, silver ion attachment to the cathode appears to be interfered with by some screening caused by weakly adsorbed, mobile agarose aggregates at the metal surface without slowing down the rate of the electron-transfer step at the cathode. Their relative contribution of a delocalized, localized pinning and screening effect to a great extent determines the morphology and transition in the growth mode of silver patterns in both media. The analysis of charge and current transients and the corresponding silver pattern morphologies for open and dense radial patterns is made. Results are qualitatively simulated with a novel, rather simple cellular automaton algorithm.