Rational Compositional Control of Electrodeposited Ag-Fe films

Some alloys are very difficult to electrodeposit, due to problems such as the large difference in the equilibrium potentials and/or deposition kinetics of the alloy components, as well as the bath instability due to the spontaneous reactions in the bulk electrolyte. The Ag-Fe system is one of those. In this work, a novel alkaline citrate-dimethylhydantoin (DMH) complex has been used to synthesize thermodynamically immiscible Ag-Fe alloy films. The large difference in standard potentials and deposition kinetics of Ag and Fe is partially resolved by complexing Ag(I) with DMH, while the instability caused from spontaneous reduction of Ag(I) by Fe(II) was partially resolved by adding 1% Fe³⁺, based on the philosophy of the mixed potential theory. Furthermore, a paradigm for control of film composition is developed, based on the mass-transfer coefficient ratio, tested with various bath constitutions. Uniform and high-quality films are obtained, with a composition error of <4 at. % comparing with the predicted values. Electrochemical reactions involved in the deposition baths were systematically investigated using cyclic voltammetry, showing satisfactory agreement with the predicted deposition potentials calculated by equilibrium thermodynamics. The films deposited at high overpotential are proven to be biphasic, containing Ag-fcc and Fe-bcc phases, with a trend of decreasing crystallinity at increasing overpotentials when deposited at constant deposition time. A narrow transition potential range (<0.05 V) from the onset of Fe deposition to its limiting current condition was observed.