We report on advances in the electrochemical deposition of indium (In) on molybdenum foil that enables deposition of electronicgrade purity, continuous films with thickness in the micron range. The desired In film morphology is obtained from an InCl 3 aqueous bath by using a high current density of 250 mA/cm 2 and a low deposition-bath temperature of −5 • C to increase the nucleation density of In islands until a continuous film is obtained. As an example application, the electrodeposited In films are phosphorized via the thin-film vapor-liquid-solid growth method. The resulting poly-crystalline InP films display excellent optoelectronic quality, comparable to single crystalline InP wafers, thus demonstrating the versatility of the developed electrochemical deposition procedure.
Manuscript Region of Origin: SPAIN Reviewers' comments:Reviewer #1: This manuscript reports interesting results about the electrodeposition of aluminium using tetramethyl guanidium -perfluoro -3 -oxa-4,5 dichloro-pentansulphonate, a novel hydrophobic ionic liquid, which is synthesized and supplied by Solvay Specialty Polymers. The effect of temperature, aluminium and bistrifluoromethanesulfonimide lithium salt concentration, in the conductivity and electrochemical behavior of the electrolyte is evaluated and clearly discussed. However, the manuscript needs some improvements before acceptance for publication. My detailed comments are as follows:At first the authors want to acknowledge the reviewer for the fruitful comment and then we tried to answer the questions The objective of this paragraph was encourage the use of the electrodeposition for the preparation of deposits. At no time it was intended to give the impression that aluminum electrodeposition from IL was used for the first time. The paragraph has been rewritten and the suggested references included and consequently reordered. 2.Introduction section (Page 3), the phrase "Aluminium has a low reduction potential", is contrary to that reported in literature. In fact, because of the rather negative standard potential of Al, electrodeposition of Al from aqueous solutions is not possible due to hydrogen evolution at the cathode (Ref. 12 in the manuscript).The words "low reduction" was used as synonym of "very negative" potential. In the new version in order to avoid misunderstandings between potential and overpotential, the phase contains "very negative standard potential". 3.Page 10, just before the last paragraph, the authors comment that the voltammograms of Fig. 4B show the onset of reduction current at higher potentials if the aluminium content is increased. I suggest changing "higher potentials" for "more positive potentials" to avoid confusions.According to the suggestion and in order to clarify the text, in this paragraph and others the "higher/lower" comparative were substituted by "more positive/more negative" in order to avoid confusions. 4.Page 11, in the discussion of the voltammetric curves obtained in the absence and presence of LiTFSI (Fig. 7), the authors comment that LiTFSI favours the aluminium deposition process, only based in the appearance of the reduction onset at Response to Reviews Aluminium electrodeposition from a novel hydrophobic ionic liquid tetramethyl guanidium -perfluoro-3-oxa-4,5 dichloro-pentan-sulphonate
Li-ion batteries are widely used in a large number of devices that are used in everyday life, from Smart Devices to Hybrd Electric Vehicles (HEVs). The research is prompted towards the development of innovative materials that can further enhance the performances of batteries1,2. Research on anodic materials is of crucial importance to meet the requirements for cited applications in terms of power and energy density. On this side, Silicon is considered to be the most promising material in terms of deliverable theoretical specific capacity, 4200 mAh/g. However, cycling performances of Silicon are jeopardized by the structural instability suffered from the material upon charge/discharge cycling. To address this issue, different solutions have been tested3 , 4. The approach developed in this work is to apply a metallic coating to the Si particles by electrochemical techniques, i.e. electroless deposition and galvanic displacement. In this work, a study of the electrochemical impact of the coating on the behavior of the electrode will be done in two steps. First, an assessment of the growth mechanism of metallic coating on Si particles will be carried out by means of SEM analysis. Then, the electrochemical characterization of electrodes containing metallized particles will be carried out by means of electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, SEM analysis and coin cell cycling. References: 1. J. B. Goodenough and Y. Kim, Chem. Mater., 22, 587–603 (2010) 2. Y. Sun et al., Nat. Mater., 11, 942–947 (2012) 3. C. K. Chan et al., Nat. Nanotechnol., 3, 31–5 (2008) 4. B. A. Boukamp, J. Electrochem. Soc., 128, 725 (1981)
Transparent conductive electrodes play an important role in different applications, as thin-film solar cells, flat-panel displays and light emitting diodes1-3. With the increasing demand arising from flexible devices, mechanical properties of electrodes are becoming more and more important and alternatives to traditional materials are being investigated4,5. Doped metal oxides, e.g. ITO, are mostly used at the moment, but their main limitation derives from their ceramic nature that makes them brittle and therefore prone to cracking, when deposited on flexible substrates6. We studied the production of metallic micronets, with the aim of finding an alternative to ITO for transparent conductive electrodes. The use of metals, which are the materials owning the highest performances in terms of electrical conductivity, allows maintaining the desired level of transparency of the electrode, given by the optimization of the geometrical parameters of the micro-net. Both polymer supported and free standing metallic micronets were produced. To obtain the former structure, a conductive Ag pattern was printed on PET substrate using ink-jet printing (an example is shown in Figure 1), and then a copper layer can be grown by electrodeposition on the silver printed lines, to obtain the freestanding structure. Release of the metallic micro-net from the PET substrate is spontaneously obtained during the electrodeposition step. Electrical and optical properties of the produced electrodes were investigated. The free-standing metallic micro-net has resistivity two orders of magnitude lower than a commercially available sample of ITO-coated PET, while maintaining high transparency. Figure 1: SEM image of Ag pattern printed on PET substrate References 1. S. Reineke, F. Lindner, G. Schwartz, N. Seidler, K. Walzer and K. Leo, Nat. Lett., 459, 234 (2009). 2. A. C. Arias, J. D. MacKenzie, I. McCulloch, J. Rivnay and A. Salleo, Chem. Rev., 110, 3 (2010). 3. J. J. Shiang, Interface, 18, 37 (2009). 4. H. Chang et al., Adv. Funct. Mater., 20, 2893 (2010) 5. L. Hu et al., ACS Nano, 4, 2955 (2010) 6. Z. Chen, Thin Solid Films, 394, 201 (2001) Figure 1
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