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Determination of the sputtering rate of electroless nickel layers with a glow discharge lamp
Author(s) -
Böhmer R. G.,
Nel J. T.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
surface and interface analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.52
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1096-9918
pISSN - 0142-2421
DOI - 10.1002/sia.740151005
Subject(s) - sputtering , nickel , glow discharge , materials science , penetration (warfare) , penetration depth , coating , metal , layer (electronics) , analytical chemistry (journal) , metallurgy , composite material , chemistry , plasma , thin film , optics , nanotechnology , chromatography , physics , quantum mechanics , operations research , engineering
Grimm glow discharge spectrometry was used to analyse electroless nickel coatings on a steel substrate. Because of poor depth resolution at the coating/metal interface, it was necessary to determine the sputtering rate of the layer itself at different power settings and to calculate the sputtering rate per power unit. The penetration time for layers with different thicknesses was also determined for different power settings. By comparing sputtering rates per power unit, it was found that the best results were obtained if the penetration time was equated to the time needed for the nickel signal to reduce to half its original value.