[labnetwork] Electroplating Ni

[Hadi Esmaeilsabzali]

I did quite a bit of permalloy (80%Ni-20%Fe) e-plating when I was in the grad school. I had to build my own setup, as at the time I couldn't find any lab that would allow me to use their setup for Ni/Fe plating (risk of contamination). I had heated 4L bath with constant mixing using magnetic stirrer and later recirculating using a small aquarium pump. The bath composition was according to a couple of established papers, and I ordered all the chemicals from Sigma.

Aside from getting the correct 20-80 composition (came down to experimentally tweaking the current for the most part to account for different reduction potentials - this shouldn't be a big issue in your application), another issue that you particularly might want to be aware of was the difference in the thickness of structures across the wafer as well as across the same structure (my structures were typically 30-100 um wide and up to 15 um thick). This happens because of the so-called “edge effect” resulting from increased electrodeposition rate due to current crowding happening on edges of individual features on the plating mold as well as across the wafer. I was initially using a wafer holder that I had made and had 4 contact point on 4 corners of the wafer. This gave really bad edge effect (the thickness difference was >25% at edges sometimes). I had to convince my boss to order a nice custom-made wafer holder (from OAI/Idonus) with a continuous electrode touching the periphery of the wafer, and it helped a lot by creating a more uniform field.

Good luck!

Hadi



Hadi Esmaeilsabzali, PhD
4D LABS, Simon Fraser University
Phone: 778-782-3790
Email: hesmaeil at sfu.ca
http://www.4dlabs.ca/

[1525200877645_1480963378154.png]

Acknowledging that we live, work, and play on the unceded territory of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish nations.



________________________________
From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Milan Begliarbekov <Milan.Begliarbekov at asrc.cuny.edu>
Sent: March 12, 2019 12:24 PM
To: labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu
Subject: [labnetwork] Electroplating Ni


Hi All,



I need to electroplate Nickel into a photoresist mask. The features should be 25 microns wide and 25 microns tall. Does anyone have a suggestion about external vendors that would be good for this? Also any other guidance about this process is highly appreciated.



Thank you for the help,



Milan Begliarbekov

Research<https://twitter.com/asrcnanofab?lang=en> Assistant Professor

NanoFabrication<https://twitter.com/asrcnanofab?lang=en> Facility<http://nanofab.asrc.cuny.edu/>

CUNY Advanced Science Research Center

Office: 212-413-3311

85 St. Nicholas Terrace

Manhattan NY 10031


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