Surface roughness of thin silver films pulse-plated using silver cyanide-thiocyanate electrolyte

We investigated the effect of the pulse current density, current-on time and current-off time on the surface roughness of a silver thin film that was pulse-plated using a silver cyanide-thiocyanate electrolyte. The interface width, which is defined by the root mean square of the fluctuations in the height of the surface, is found to decrease rapidly with the current-off time and to increase with current-on time. However, it should be noted that when the value of current-off time is sufficiently large, the interface width decreases with pulse current density. These experimental results indicate that by appropriate selection of the current-on time and current-off time, we can fabricate silver electrodeposits with minimal surface roughness. We have discussed the influence of these three parameters on the interface width from the viewpoint of the cathode potential and adsorption.