Investigating the effect of magnetic field on pulse electrodeposition of magnetic and non-magnetic nanostructured metals

• Nickel and copper coatings were pulse plated on copper and aluminum respectively.
• Applying a magnetic field parallel to the cathode surface changed the morphology of nickel coatings significantly.
• Applying a magnetic field perpendicular to the cathode surface for copper increased the grain size according to XRD results.
• Applying a magnetic field during pulse plating of nickel changed the magnetic properties of nickel coatings.

The goal of this research was to study the effect of applying a static magnetic field (0.24 T) on the electroplating process of nickel and copper nanostructured coatings prepared by pulse plating. The coatings were electrodeposited with and without applying the magnetic field. The results from scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and assessment of some properties showed that there were differences in the coating pattern, morphology, microstructure, hardness and roughness of these magnetic (nickel) and non-magnetic (copper) pulse plated coatings when applying a magnetic field parallel to the cathode surface in comparison with applying the field normal to the cathode. The results from vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) for the nickel coatings also showed that variation in its morphology led to some changes in some magnetic properties of the nanostructured nickel coatings.