GROWTH-MECHANISM AND STRUCTURE OF ELECTRODEPOSITED CU NI MULTILAYERS/

The growth mechanism of Cu/Ni multilayers, electrodeposited from a sin gle bath on a polycrystalline copper substrate, has been studied both electrochemically and through transmission electron microscopy. It is shown that Cu/Ni multilayers grow epitaxially sequentially in the pref erential crystallographic directions [110] and [111], when the modulat ion distance is less than approximately 10 nm. Above this value, the e pitaxial growth is progressively replaced by a growth mechanism which is based on nucleation followed by grain growth. This work also demost rates that electrodeposition has a capacity to produce Cu/Ni multilaye rs with modulation distances below 5 nm.