Electrochemical reliability

Because multilayer interconnecting networks are an important element of advanced chips and parallel processors, it is essential that an understanding of the corrosion processes that affect their reliability be developed. Needed are methods to quantify metal corrosion and ion transport in polymers and means to identify electrochemically reliable metal-polymer systems. 

The presented examples clearly demonstrate tliat a combination of several different teclmiques is urgently recommended for a complete characterization of tire chemical composition and tire atomic stmcture of electrode surfaces and a reliable interiDretation of tire related results. Stmcture sensitive metliods should be combined witli spectroscopic and electrochemical teclmiques. Besides in situ techniques such as SXS, XAS and STM or AFM, ex situ vacuum teclmiques have proven tlieir significance for tlie investigation of tlie electrode/electrolyte interface. 

We developed a sensor for determination of content of phosphorars in metallurgical melts. In quality of ion conductor used orthophosphate of calcium which pressed in tablets 010 mm. Tablets (mass 1-2 g) annealed at a temperature 400°C during 7-10 h. Tablets melts then in a quartz tube and placed the alloy of iron containing 1 mass % P. Control of sensor lead on Fe - P melts. Information on activities (effective concentration) of phosphorars in Fe - P melts was received. It is set that the isotherm of activity of phosphorars shows negative deviations from the Raouls law. Comparison them with reliable literary inforiuation showed that they agree between itself. Thus, reliable data on activities (effective concentration) of phosphorars in metallic melts it is possible to received by created electrochemical sensor for express determination. 

The active and passive electrochemical processes on which present-day corrosion protection is based were already known in the 19th century, but reliable protection for pipelines only developed at the turn of the 20th century. 

The use of electrochemical protection in the chemical industry started about 20 years ago, which is somewhat recent, compared with its use for buried pipelines 40 years ago. Adoption was slow because the internal protection has to be tailored to the individual plant, which is not the case with the external protection of buried objects. Interest in internal protection came from the increasing need for greater safety for operating plants, increased demands for corrosion resistance, and larger plant components. While questions of its economy cannot generally be answered (see Section 22.6), the costs of electrochemical protection are generally less than the cost of equivalent and reliable coatings or corrosion-resistant materials. 

The factors influencing the corrosion of metals in soil are more numerous than those prevailing in air or water, and the electrochemical effects are more pronounced. Moreover, soils vary widely in their composition and behaviour even over very short distances. It is difficult therefore to obtain reliable data. It is evident, however, that zinc has considerable resistance to corrosion when buried, and the greatest attack is caused by soils which are acid or contain large amounts of soluble salts. 

Electrochemical tests This group includes the various electrochemical tests that have been proposed and used over the last fifty or so years. These tests include a number of techniques ranging from the measurement of potential-time curves, electrical resistance and capacitance to the more complex a.c. impedance methods. The various methods have been reviewed by Walter . As the complexity of the technique increases, i.e. in the above order, the data that are produced will provide more types of information for the metal-paint system. Thus, the impedance techniques can provide information on the water uptake, barrier action, damaged area and delamination of the coating as well as the corrosion rate and corroded area of the metal. However, it must be emphasised that the more comprehensive the technique the greater the difficulties that will arise in interpretation and in reproducibility. In fact, there is a school of thought that holds that d.c. methods are as reliable as a.c. methods. 

A thrust can be expected in development of the electrochemical methods (reliability, operation and interpretation), TLA and custom-built NDT systems for specific requirements. The disadvantage of using separate sensors rather than the actual plant has been stated. Methods that can use plant for data are required, and developments in magnetic finger-printing may contribute here. 

Purification of solvents and salts is essential for reliable electrochemical studies and measurements. A water content of 20ppm already corresponds to a 10 3molL solution. This is in the concentration range of dilute solutions used in conductivity studies for the determination of association constants (see Sec.7.3.2). Traces of water may affect chemical equilibria and therefore act on specific conductivities and limiting ion conductivities. For example, addition of 30 ppm water to a 2xl0-4 mol LT1 solution of LiBF4 in THF at 15 °C increases its conductivity by 4.4 percent (precision of measurements about 0.02 percent) 380 ppm water causes an increase by 51.7 percent see Fig. 3 [20J. 

Owing to the rapid development of the field from an experimental point of view, and the persistence of discussions on some of the aspects outlined above, a chapter on the pzc that includes a discussion of the relation between the electrochemical and the ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) situation in reference to the conditions at the pzc seems timely. This review of the literature will not be exhaustive but selective, taking into account the compilations already existing. In any case, the objective is to evaluate the existing data in order to recommend the most reliable. Finally, the data on pzc will be discussed in comparison with electron work function values. The role and significance of work functions in electrochemistry were discussed by Trasatti6 in 1976. 

There are no direct, reliable measurements of 0 based upon adsorption of water from the gas phase. Therefore, 4.25 eV applies to a macroscopic water layer as in the electrochemical configuration. The decrease in 0 upon water adsorption is a general occurrence with metals. The value of A0 observed with Hg is the lowest among those available in the literature.35,36 With reference to Eq. (20), this means that the perturbations of the surfaces of the two phases are small for the Hg/water contact. In other words, the interaction between Hg and water is weak (hydrophobic). 

Using impedance data of TBN+ adsorption and back-integration,259,588 a more reliable value of <7 0 was found for a pc-Cu electrode574,576 (Table 11). Therefore, differences between the various EffM) values are caused by the different chemical states and surface structures of pc-Cu electrodes prepared by different methods (electrochemical or chemical polishing, mechanical cutting). Naumov etal,585 have observed these differences in the pzc of electroplated Cu films prepared in different ways. 

UHV A

comparison with reliable recent data is possible only for... 

Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy leads to information on surface states and representative circuits of electrode/electrolyte interfaces. Here, the measurement technique involves potential modulation and the detection of phase shifts with respect to the generated current. The driving force in a microwave measurement is the microwave power, which is proportional to E2 (E = electrical microwave field). Therefore, for a microwave impedance measurement, the microwave power P has to be modulated to observe a phase shift with respect to the flux, the transmitted or reflected microwave power APIP. Phase-sensitive microwave conductivity (impedance) measurements, again provided that a reliable theory is available for combining them with an electrochemical impedance measurement, should lead to information on the kinetics of surface states and defects and the polarizability of surface states, and may lead to more reliable information on real representative circuits of electrodes. We suspect that representative electrical circuits for electrode/electrolyte interfaces may become directly determinable by combining phase-sensitive electrical and microwave conductivity measurements. However, up to now, in this early stage of development of microwave electrochemistry, only comparatively simple measurements can be evaluated. 

As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter real phase-sensitive measurements of electrochemical systems have not yet been performed. Not only is the experimental technique difficult, but a reliable theory of... 

At present, the microwave electrochemical technique is still in its infancy and only exploits a portion of the experimental research possibilities that are provided by microwave technology. Much experience still has to be gained with the improvement of experimental cells for microwave studies and in the adjustment of the parameters that determine the sensitivity and reliability of microwave measurements. Many research possibilities are still unexplored, especially in the field of transient PMC measurements at semiconductor electrodes and in the application of phase-sensitive microwave conductivity measurements, which may be successfully combined with electrochemical impedance measurements for a more detailed exploration of surface states and representative electrical circuits of semiconductor liquid junctions. 

We did not feel any of these methods would work reliably on a commercial scale at current densities in the range of 300 mA cm"2 or for commercial periods (at least 4000 hr). Rudge s work9,10 with porous carbon anodes was a very elegant solution to the problem (and formed the basis for the Phillips Electrochemical Fluorination process), but the high electrical resistance of the porous carbon limited it to small anodes at high current densities or lower current densities on large anodes. 

A variety of other techniques have been used to investigate ion transport in conducting polymers. The concentrations of ions in the polymer or the solution phase have been monitored by a variety of in situ and ex situ techniques,8 such as radiotracer studies,188 X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS),189 potentiometry,154 and Rutherford backscatter-ing.190 The probe-beam deflection method, in which changes in the density of the solution close to the polymer surface are monitored, provides valuable data on transient ion transport.191 Rotating-disk voltammetry, using an electroactive probe ion, provides very direct and reliable data, but its utility is very limited.156,19 193 Scanning electrochemical microscopy has also been used.194... 

The kinetics of ion backspillover on the other hand will depend on two factors On the rate, I/nF, of their formation at the tpb and on their surface diffusivity, Ds, on the metal surface. As will be shown in Chapters 4 and 5 the rate of electrochemically controlled ion backspillover is normally limited by I/nF, i.e. the slow step is their transfer at the tpb. Surface diffusion is usually fast. Thus, as shown in Chapter 5, for the case of Pt electrodes where reliable surface O diffusivity data exist, obtained by Gomer and Lewis several years ago,76 Ds is at least 4.-10 11 cm2/s at 400°C and thus an O2 ion can move at least 1 pm per s on a Pt(lll) or Pt(110) surface. Therefore ion backspillover from solid electrolytes onto electrode surface is not only thermodynamically feasible, but can also be quite fast on the electrode surface. But does it really take place This we will see in the next Chapter. 

Finally, the recording of many signals from the output of the analytic and electrochemical instrumentation requires a reliable multi-pen recorder or an equivalent recording system based on a data acquisition card and appropriate software. The recorded signals are normally in the range of a few mV to 10V. The use of reliable temperature controllers and thermocouples is also crucial for the success of the experiments. A lot of suppliers of such equipment can be easily found and will not be reported here. 

Checking the absence of internal mass transfer limitations is a more difficult task. A procedure that can be applied in the case of catalyst electrode films is the measurement of the open circuit potential of the catalyst relative to a reference electrode under fixed gas phase atmosphere (e.g. oxygen in helium) and for different thickness of the catalyst film. Changing of the catalyst potential above a certain thickness of the catalyst film implies the onset of the appearance of internal mass transfer limitations. Such checking procedures applied in previous electrochemical promotion studies allow one to safely assume that porous catalyst films (porosity above 20-30%) with thickness not exceeding 10pm are not expected to exhibit internal mass transfer limitations. The absence of internal mass transfer limitations can also be checked by application of the Weisz-Prater criterion (see, for example ref. 33), provided that one has reliable values for the diffusion coefficient within the catalyst film. 

It is only since 1980 that in situ spectroscopic techniques have been developed to obtain identification of the adsorbed intermediates and hence of reliable reaction mechanisms. These new infrared spectroscopic in situ techniques, such as electrochemically modulated infrared reflectance spectroscopy (EMIRS), which uses a dispersive spectrometer, Fourier transform infrared reflectance spectroscopy, or a subtractively normalized interfacial Fourier transform infrared reflectance spectroscopy (SNIFTIRS), have provided definitive proof for the presence of strongly adsorbed species (mainly adsorbed carbon monoxide) acting as catalytic poisons. " " Even though this chapter is not devoted to the description of in situ infrared techniques, it is useful to briefly note the advantages and limitations of such spectroscopic methods. 

On the way to more reliability in device fabrication, Kronholz et al. reported on the reproducible fabrication of protected metal nanoelectrodes on silicon chips with <30nm gap width and their electrochemical characterization [33]. For the fabrication of the chips, an optical lithography step and two electron-beam steps are combined (Figure 18). 

The anti-DNA antibody has been used as a marker molecule of Systemic Lupus Erthematosus (SLE) which is a severe autoimmune disease. Enzyme immunoassay is the most reliable, widely used method of assay however, the electrochemical detection method reported here should be interesting for the purpose of a rapid and convenient diagnostic tool of SLE. 

---