Quantitative texture analysis of free-standing electrodeposited Cu- and Ni-line patterns Original Research Article

Free-standing line patterns of Cu and Ni were manufactured by applying photo-lithography and subsequent electrodeposition on glass wafers covered with either a polycrystalline Au-layer or an X-ray amorphous Ni–P layer. Several pattern geometries varying in line width, line separation and line length were studied by X-ray diffraction. Quantitative texture analysis revealed that crystallographic texture depends on the type of substrate-layer: while substrate unbiased growth was observed for Cu-lines on amorphous Ni–P, the highly-textured and fine-grained Au-layer strongly favored nucleation of Cu-crystallites of a preferred orientation. For particular pattern geometries, experimental evidence for an epitaxial orientation relation between Cu and Au was found and discussed with respect to various concepts of epitaxial growth. While crystallographic texture of Ni-electrodeposits was independent on the pattern geometry, for Cu-electrodeposits a pronounced pattern dependence of both type and strength of crystallographic texture as well as differences between Cu-lines and non-patterned Cu-films were observed.