Electronic Setup for Etching Ion Tracks and Electrochemical Deposition of Materials Inside Nanopores

Cristian Zet, Ionuţ Enculescu, Reimar Spohr

Abstract

During last years, ion track technology has attracted considerable attention. This technology uses as support polymer foils irradiated with ion beams produced by heavy ions accelerators. Accelerated ions passing through these foils produce latent ion tracks by breaking the polymer chains [1]. Latent ion tracks can be selectively removed by chemical etching and obtain nanopores with diameters going down to 10nm. Nanopores can be used as they are or can be filled with metals to obtain nanowires [2]. Both, the etching process and the electrodeposition can be performed in the same electrochemical two-compartment cell, the polymer foil being positioned between them. To control the etching or the deposition process an electric setup must be arranged. The cell configuration is different for etching or growing, but the setup is very similar. It includes a computer with data acquisition board, a picoamperemeter and the electrolytical cell. This configuration is equivalent with a potentiostat but with the possibility to apply different waveforms and to store large amount of data without overloading the computer.

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IMEKO-TC4-2005-033.pdf

DOI

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IMEKO TC

TC4 - Measurement of Electrical Quantities

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