engleski

Electric field assisted dissolution of copper, aluminum and silver compact layers

Electric field assisted dissolution (EFAD) is a process in which metal nanoparticles on the surface of the substrate dissolve and drift away from the anode into the bulk of the substrate under the influence of the applied electric field and moderately elevated temperature. There is a significant interest in EFAD due to its possibility to imprint the image of anodic electrode structure in glass- metal nanocomposites. EFAD can also be utilized for developing novel bio-, chemical and environmental sensors. Recently, microstructuring of conductive thin silver layers have been obtained using EFAD. Copper and aluminium are materials interesting for microstructuring because of their good conductivity, they are abundant and consequently, relatively cheap. It would be useful to find the maximum conductive microstructure thickness that can be achieved by reasonable EFAD conditions using these materials. For this purpose, copper, aluminium, and silver thin layers were deposited onto soda-lime glass substrate using electron beam evaporation. Different magnitudes of electric field, temperature and duration of EFAD were applied to these layers. Measurements of the obtained samples electrical and optical properties is done by impedance spectroscopy and elipsometry followed by optical characterization.The limitations of EFAD process applied for microstructuring of conductive metal layers, same as guidelines for further research were obtained.

EFAD ; copper, ; aluminium ; silver

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