Pulse Current Efficiency in Coating Process of Gold Nanoparticles from Potassium Dicyanoaurate Solution

Comparison of the effects of two substrates and additives on pulse current electrodeposition of Au nanoparticles showed that using indium-tin oxide instead of Cu and cysteine instead of potassium iodide can improve morphology, current efficiency, photocatalytic effect and increase the number of nanocrystals. The examinations using the field-emission scanning-electron-microscope (FE-SEM) showed that Au nanoclusters appear on the Cu surface when pulse frequency increases from 50 to 142.8 Hz and potassium iodide additive is added, whereas both the coating thickness and the current efficiency increased with the frequency of the pulse current. As current density decreased, the deposition thickness and the cathodic current efficiency decreased from 10 to 2.5 mA/cm2.