TY - JOUR
T1 - Modeling and analysis of electrodeposition in porous templates
AU - Fang, Alta
AU - Haataja, Mikko
N1 - Funding Information:
A. F. acknowledges a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship under grant No. DGE 1148900. Useful discussions with Ryan Davis, Sangwoo Shin, Howard Stone, and Yuanda Xu are gratefully acknowledged.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - Controlling the morphology of materials grown via electrodeposition into porous templates remains a challenge, since the filling of the template often proceeds in a non-uniform manner, which is undesirable for applications such as nanowire fabrication. Here, we first develop a continuum phase-field approach for modeling electrodeposition into a porous template. We simulate growth within a single straight pore in order to study the fraction of the pore width filled by the deposit under various conditions, and then simulate growth within and overflowing a template composed of several straight pores. We reproduce experimentally observed cap morphologies and corresponding current transients, and find that when the template material is permeable to ionic diffusion, growth becomes more non-uniform. We also perform simulations of electrodeposition in pores with cross-sectional areas that vary over the height of the template, and show that the deposit homogeneity is strongly affected by variations in pore geometry. Finally, we carry out a statistical analysis of length distributions of electrodeposited nanowires extracted from experimental images. Such an analysis enables us to quantify, e.g., the pore-to-pore variations in nucleation times or growth rates required to yield the observed spread in nanowire lengths.
AB - Controlling the morphology of materials grown via electrodeposition into porous templates remains a challenge, since the filling of the template often proceeds in a non-uniform manner, which is undesirable for applications such as nanowire fabrication. Here, we first develop a continuum phase-field approach for modeling electrodeposition into a porous template. We simulate growth within a single straight pore in order to study the fraction of the pore width filled by the deposit under various conditions, and then simulate growth within and overflowing a template composed of several straight pores. We reproduce experimentally observed cap morphologies and corresponding current transients, and find that when the template material is permeable to ionic diffusion, growth becomes more non-uniform. We also perform simulations of electrodeposition in pores with cross-sectional areas that vary over the height of the template, and show that the deposit homogeneity is strongly affected by variations in pore geometry. Finally, we carry out a statistical analysis of length distributions of electrodeposited nanowires extracted from experimental images. Such an analysis enables us to quantify, e.g., the pore-to-pore variations in nucleation times or growth rates required to yield the observed spread in nanowire lengths.
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U2 - 10.1149/2.1331713jes
DO - 10.1149/2.1331713jes
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85034659976
SN - 0013-4651
VL - 164
SP - D875-D887
JO - Journal of the Electrochemical Society
JF - Journal of the Electrochemical Society
IS - 13
ER -