Characterization of screw dislocation-driven growth in nickel micro-nanostructure electrodeposition process by AFM

In this study, nickel coating with micro-nanostructure feature was fabricated by a simple two-step method during electrodeposition process. To evaluate surface morphology characteristics, the histogram and power spectral density analyses of atomic force microscopy data were extracted from two different morphologies of nickel films. Results showed that boric acid plays an important role in the control of nucleation and the growth of micro-nanostructures. With clear observation of growth steps in atomic force microscopy characterization, terrace width and spiral growth proved the existence of screw dislocation growth. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.