Hi
I have read a paper on Fabrication of highly ordered metallic nanowire arrays by electrodeposition by Yin a Brown University, US. See link for a copy of the paper.
This paper discusses, among other things, the deposition of Bi and Ni to produce nanowires.
Yin grew nickel and bismuth nano-wire using AC electrodeposition for applications of high density recording devices and sensors. Yin used an AAO (self-ordered anodised aluminium oxide) film as the cathode and a graphite bar as the anode. He states that electrodeposition of metal into the porous alumina film directly following anodisation can take place only under AC conditions. Producing either Bi or Ni nano-wires required different conditions. Yin also found that the frequency range used also affected the results produced. Another point worth noting is that high quality deposition of Ni could be obtained with AC frequencies from 10 to 750 Hz and for Bi the optimum frequency range was between 10 and 100 Hz. He commented that this was probably due to the double layer. However, if the double layer is the main factor dictating the frequency response then surely the frequency he stated would be a function of the electrode size? Thus his figure are arbitrary as they do not have any dimensional data. And if he did use the same size electrodes for both Bi and Ni deposition why would the frequencies be different? Surely the double layer capacitance is the same for both metals or am I missing something here or is the double layer capacitance a function of the metal's atomic number? One thing that is obvious is that Bi(83) is significantly heavier than Ni (28).
Could somebody possible help clear this up for me.
Cheers
Wayne