Crystallographic textures and magnetic properties of electroformed nickel

The magnetic properties of nickel deposits are known to be related to their crystallographic textures. Although there has been significant work investigating the relationship between crystallographic textures and magnetic properties of sputtered ferro-magnetic films, relatively less effort has been spent on studying electroformed nickels. Orientation distribution functions and coercivity of the nickel deposits, electroformed by using a nickel sulphamate bath and pulse-reverse currents, have been determined and their relationship examined. It was found that the [1 0 0] fibre texture with different orientation densities was formed at different on-times and off-times, and that at the same deposition thickness the coercivity increased with increase in the orientation density of the [1 0 0] fibre texture. This findings are of high significance as they can serve as guidelines for the production of nickel deposits with defined magnetic properties through the control of crystallographic texture by varying the pulse parameters in pulse-reverse current electroforming.