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Control of Dendritic Growth in Electrodeposition
For over 30 years, physicists have studied electrodeposition as a canonical example of fractal dendritic growth. The simplest model is Diffusion-Limited Aggregation (DLA), but electromigration, convection, and surface phenomena also play important roles. This talk will introduce the basic physics of transport-limited growth and discuss new phenomena of pattern formation and control, when electrodeposition occurs in charged porous media, influenced by surface conduction and electro-osmotic flows. In particular, the possibility of suppressing surface instability and dendritic growth by “shock electrodeposition” is demonstrated, both theoretically and experimentally. Applications include rechargeable metal anodes for batteries, template-assisted electrodeposition for nanotechnology, and conductive-bridge random access memory (CB-RAM) for microelectronics.