Design and Construction of Optimized Electrochemical Cell and Data Analysis System for Etching of Ion Tracks and Electro Deposition of Nano and Micro Wires in Porous Ion Tracks Foils

In this work, an optimized computer controlled electrochemical cell were designed and constructed. This Electrolytic cell was used for etching latent ion tracks and electrochemical deposition of wires in pores of etched-ion tracks foils. The applied voltage and current through the electrochemical cell during the etching and electrodeposition were measured and monitored in real time by a Data Analysis system. Monitoring the current time curve during the filling of pores and growth of micro and nano wires allows one to stop the deposition process after a given time to obtain nano- and micro wire of a predefined length. In this work, Design and manufacture of a sealed electrochemical cell was done in a manner that one can change distance between electrodes and geometry of cathodes. Data analysis system was used to measuring and monitoring of applied voltage and current through the cell consists of three parts: Amplifier, Data acquisition (DAQ) system and Software. A current amplifier that used in data analysis system is a log ratio amplifier. A log ratio amplifier provides an output voltage proportional to the log base 10 of the ratio input current I₁ (current during the electrodeposition of wire in cell) and Input current I₂(flexible current of precision current source). A DAQ reading output voltage of amplifier and send to Computer. With lab view software analyzed the voltage and converted to the current corresponding to the electrodeposition of wires. Current amplifier designed and built in this work is a noise suppression that can measure small current through the cell with high accuracy. Advantage of proposed log ratio amplifier is one can used this amplifier for measuring and monitoring of current during the filling of pores and growth of wires in the etched ion track foils with various track density.