Effect of current waveform on the deposit quality of electroformed nickels

In recent years, much attention has been paid to electroforming as a high-t ech manufacturing technique for many micro-devices such as optical readout disk moulds and micro-transducers. However, most of the present research wo rks are focused on using square-wave pulse current to enhance surface finis hing and deposit quality, little research result having been reported on th e use of other waveforms. In this paper, triangular-, sine- and square-wave pulse currents are used in the investigations. It is shown that a better s urface finishing and a smaller grain size can be obtained by using a triang ular wave. Different orientation densities of [1 0 0] fiber texture are obs erved for different waveforms, which are considered to be related to the ch ange of the amount of inhibiting chemical species during the electrodeposit ion process. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.