Roles of preparation conditions in the morphological evolution of electrodeposited copper

We scrutinized the roles of fabrication conditions in the morphological construction of electrodeposited Cu using generated H₂ bubbles as dynamic negative templates. Adjusting the concentration of acetic acid changed the shapes of the deposited Cu particles, adding cetyltrimethylammonium bromide made the generated Cu easily deposit and grow on the stabilized bubbles for more formation of interconnected dendrites, and decreasing Cu²⁺ concentration resulted in rugged dendritic morphologies. Increasing potential/current densities facilitated the deposition of Cu within the interstitial spaces of smaller bubbles and leaded to the more formation of interlocked dendrites with smaller pores and Cu particles, while increasing deposition time increased the deposited Cu amount for more dendrites with longer trunks but unvaried branches and Cu particles in size. Based on these investigations, we facilely prepared three-dimensionally bi-continuous porous Cu films under an optimized electrodeposition condition. The films composed of ~300 nm interconnected particles had 5 µm underneath pores and 50 µm surface pores with 10 µm pore wall thickness. Our research paves an avenue for easily fabricating porous metals by considering the effects of the preparation conditions on the morphological evolution of the deposited metals and optimizing the preparation conditions.