Yuxin Luo#, Jingjing Wang#, Lu Wang, Ziyi Yan, Yi Ma, Xin Bo*, Jingshuang Dang*, Zenglin Wang*, Journal of Electrochemistry, 2025, DOI: 10.61558/2993-074X.3533.

In the process of electroless cobalt plating, the saccharin additive can significantly change the surface morphology, texture orientation, and conductivity of the cobalt coating layer. When the amount of saccharin was 3 mg·L^-1, the cobalt coating transformed from disordered large grains to a honeycomb structure, with a preferred orientation of (002) facet on hexagonal close-packed (HCP) cobalt crystals. The resistivity of the cobalt film decreased to 14.4 μΩ·cm, and after annealing treatment, the resistivity further decreased to 10.7 μΩ·cm. When the concentration of saccharin increases, the grain size gradually refines and presents a "stone forest" structure, with the preferred orientation remaining unchanged. The addition of saccharin also slightly improves the purity of cobalt coating to a certain extent. Through the study of the crystallization behavior of cobalt electroless plating, saccharin molecules can adsorb to specific c-sites on the cobalt dense crystal plane, inhibiting the growth of abc stacking arrangement and inducing the crystal growth in ab stacking mode, thereby achieving optimal growth of HCP (002) texture.

Co-First Authors: Master’s student Luo Yuxin and Wang Jingjing, Shaanxi Normal University

Correspondence Authors: A/Prof. Bo Xin, A/prof. Dang Jingshuang, and Prof. Wang Zenglin, Shaanxi Normal University

Full Text Link: https://jelectrochem.xmu.edu.cn/online_first/104/