Surface morphology characterization of industrial zinc electrodeposits as a function of chemical additives using atomic force microscopy and scaling analysis

Abstract

The influence of chemical additive and deposition time on the morphology of short-time zinc electrodeposits was studied using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) and scaling analysis. SEM and AFM were utilized to capture high-resolution images of zinc samples produced between 10 and 90 minutes of deposition from an electrolyte with a composition similar to that being used in the industry. Scaling analysis of the 3D AFM images was used to quantify surface roughness including root-mean-squared (rms) roughness, feature widths, roughness to width ratios, and their rates of change. Insight on the growth mechanism for these short-term deposits was achieved using scaling analysis. Within the deposition conditions studied, results showed that zinc deposit morphology is influenced by the relative proportions of bone glue, sodium silicate and licorice additives.