Pulse plating of nickel: influence of electrochemical parameters and composition of electrolyte

In this paper, the influence of the electrochemical parameters and the composition of the electrolyte on the properties of the deposits in pulse plating of nickel will be discussed. The characteristics and the electrochemical behaviour of a nickel sulphamate bath with and without organic additives were derived from fundamental electrochemical experiments. Plating experiments using pulsed current for the deposition revealed the resulting layer properties. The addition of organic bath additives strongly influences the properties of the deposited nickel layers. While the hardness of the layers can be considerably improved by organic additives in the plating electrolyte, these additives can interfere with the freshly deposited nickel surface during the off-time of the pulse sequence.