Erratum: The Effect of rf-Irradiation on Electrochemical Deposition and Its Stabilization by Nanoparticle Doping [J. Electrochem. Soc., 154, D249 (2007)]

Abstract

Qualitative observations of electrochemical deposition in thin circular cells have shown that radio-frequency rf irradiation of zinc sulfate solutions can dramatically affect the deposition patterns. For some growth parameters the rf-treatment can even induce morphology transitions between the dense branching morphology and dendritic growth.We found that the effects of rf-treatments can last for a long time hours. In addition, detailed studies using electron microscopy observations reveal that the effects span on all scales, from the micrometer-scale organization to the self-organization of the macroscopic pattern. We propose that these changes of patterning on all scales resulted from singular effects of gas-filled submicrometer bubbles or nanobubbles, which are generated by the rf-irradiation. The idea is that hydration shells around the nanobubbles induce water ordering that acts as a new singular perturbation mechanism in the solution. The latter is in addition to the well studied microscale singular perturbation mechanisms in the deposit surface tension and attachment kinetics. We also studied electrochemical deposition in zinc sulfate solutions prepared from water that is doped with nanoparticles under rf-irradiation, and found similar and even amplified effects. Moreover, the nanoparticle doping stabilizes the effects—they are retained months after the solutions were prepared.