Dissolution of Zinc-Enriched Phases During Layer-by-Layer Deposition of Cu-Zn Thin Films

The results of a study of zinc-enriched phases dissolution during the layer-by-layer deposition of thin, nanoscale films of Cu-Zn alloys from a polyligand pyrophosphate-citrate electrolyte are presented. The treatment of zinc-enriched layers in the background electrolyte solution was used under conditions of a potential change corresponding to a potential change during the deposition of layers of a more positive alpha phase, using the additional function of the MTech PGP-550S galvanostat-potentiostat, which allows electrolysis under conditions of a given nonlinear potential change. It is shown that the partial dissolution of layers containing zinc-enriched ε-phase during deposition of layers containing more positive phases leads to proportional decrease in the cathode current efficiency of multilayer coatings with increase in ε-phase content.