Nickel sulfur thin films deposited by ECALE: Electrochemical, XPS and AFM characterization

This paper reports on a study of the electrodeposition of nickel sulfide thin films on Ag(1 1 1) by the Electrochemical Atomic Layer Epitaxy (ECALE) technique. The multilayer growth of nickel sulfide has been studied by cyclic and stripping voltammetry. The composition of the films was studied by XPS analysis and the morphology was studied by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). The phenomenological observation of the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) suggests the presence of electrocatalytic properties of the thin films obtained. (c) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.