The electrolytic growth of dendrites from ionic solutions

作者：John L. Barton, J. O’M. Bockris · 发表于：Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A Mathematical and Physical Sciences · 年份：1962 · DOI：10.1098/rspa.1962.0154 · 被引用次数：316 · 研究领域：Electrochemical Analysis and Applications、Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications、Neuroscience and Neural Engineering

Abstract Measurements have been made of the electrolytic growth on silver spheres of dendrites from the silver + silver nitrate system in liquid sodium nitrate + potassium nitrate. The potential and current density for initiation have been determined as a function of concentration and purity of the solution. Rates of growth have been measured as a function of potential at constant overpotential. The radius of the tips has been determined by electron microscopy. At constant current, the current density on to the base electrode during dendritic growth is proportional to the overpotential and the slope of the current density-overpotential relation is proportional to the concentration of silver ions. A critical current density (icrit) exists for initiation of dendritic growth. It is proportional to the silver ion concentration and increases as the radius of the substrate electrode decreases. icrit corresponds to an overpotential of 3 mV and increases with increasing purity of the solution. Dendrites are initiated up to 1 h after a constant current is switched on. At a given overpotential, a number of dendrites grow at a characteristic rate (v). Dendrites initiated at higher potential grow faster than those initiated at lower potential. The growing tip is parabolic and rtip ≏ 10-5 cm. Twins are in some dendrites. The current density to the substrate is controlled by diffusion at all conditions and obeys laws characteristic of spherical diffusion for small radii of the substrate. T...