Effect of current waveform on the deposit quality of electroformed nickels

In recent years, much attention has been paid to electroforming as a high-tech manufacturing technique for many micro-devices such as optical readout disk moulds and micro-transducers. However, most of the present research works are focused on using square-wave pulse current to enhance surface finishing and deposit quality, little research result having been reported on the use of other waveforms. In this paper, triangular-, sine- and square-wave pulse currents are used in the investigations. It is shown that a better surface finishing and a smaller grain size can be obtained by using a triangular wave. Different orientation densities of [100] fiber texture are observed for different waveforms, which are considered to be related to the change of the amount of inhibiting chemical species during the electrodeposition process.