Fabrication of Various Nickel Nanostructures by Manipulating the One-Step Electrodeposition Process

Abstract

By employing colloidal crystal templates with different colloid diameters, nickel well-ordered macroporous structures (inverse opal) with different void diameters can be fabricated via a template-mediated electrodeposition process. It was found that the different degrees of filling colloidal crystal template produces different nickel nanostructures during the electrodeposition process. Moreover, the filling behavior for electrodeposition of nickel into the template can be characterized in terms of the current transients recorded. Because of preferential nickel-filling into the interstitial spaces among the colloids, fabrication of well-ordered nickel nanorod and monolayer porous arrays are manipulated by controlling electrodeposition times accurately at 5 and , respectively. However, the macroporous structure covered with hollow sphere arrays on the surface can be formed in due to preferential nickel-coating around the colloidal surface. Therefore, various kinds of nickel-based structures derived from colloidal crystals can be constructed via a one-step, template-mediated electrodeposition process.