Influence of electropolished copper substrate on morphology of electroplating self-supporting Ni films

Nickel thin films were deposited on an electropolished copper substrate by electroplating in order to obtain large-area self-supporting nickel films. The influence of the electropolished copper substrate on morphology of electroplating nickel film, including the surface morphology, roughness and crystallographic structure was investigated in this work. The results showed that the quality of the electroplating Ni films was closely related to the copper substrate surface feature of electropolishing and the current density of the electroplating. Proper polishing of the copper substrate can decrease the roughness of the nickel films, while increasing the electroplating current density made it easy to nucleate in the surface of the nickel coating, causing the roughness of the nickel surface. The nickel coatings on the electropolished copper substrate had the preferred orientation, corresponding to Ni (111). The copper substrate polishing condition of 7 V seemed to be one of the best candidates for preparing the self-supporting nickel film with low roughness. Self-supporting nickel films were obtained with thickness of 280 ± 10 μg/cm2 and effective area of 2×2 cm2.