Effects of Ni Concentration on Residual Stress in Electrodeposited Ni Thin Film for 63Ni Sealed Source

Chloride plating solution was fabricated by dissolving metal Ni powders in a mixed solution with HCl and de-ionized water. Effects of $Ni^{2+}$ and saccharin concentrations in the plating baths on current efficiency, residual stress, surface morphology and microstructure of Ni films were studied. In the case of $0.2M\;Ni^{2+}$ concentration, current efficiency was decreased to about 65 % with increasing saccharin concentration, but, in the case of $0.7M\;Ni^{2+}$ concentration, it was shown more than 90 % with the increase of saccharin concentration. Residual stress of Ni thin film was appeared to be about 400 MPa up to 0.0244 M saccharin concentration at the $0.2M\;Ni^{2+}$ concentration and surface morphology with severe cracks was observed in the range of 0.0487~0.0975 M saccharin concentration. Residual stress of Ni thin films was measured to be about 750 MPa without saccharin addition and 114~148 MPa at the range of 0.0097~0.0975 M saccharin concentration for the $0.7M\;Ni^{2+}$ concentration. Relatively low residual stress values (114~148 MPa) of the Ni films at the range of 0.0097~0.0975 M saccharin concentration may be resulted from codeposition of S from saccharin. Ni films at $0.7M\;Ni^{2+}$ concentration showed smooth surface morphology and were independent of saccharin concentration. Ni films at $0.7M\;Ni^{2+}$ concentration consist of FCC(111), FCC(200), FCC(220) and FCC(311) peaks and the intensities of FCC(111) and FCC(200) peaks increased with increasing saccharin concentration. Also, the average grain size decreased with increasing saccharin concentration from about 30 nm to about 15 nm.

63Ni 밀봉선원용 Ni 전기도금 박막에서 Ni 농도가 잔류응력에 미치는 영향