I am facing an issue in electroplating of copper, Nickel and Gold over the sputtered thin film of Titanium and Copper on Alumina substrate. We are depositing 60nm Titanium and 400nm of copper. Our Titanium and Copper have perfect adhesion with each other and Alumina substrate when it is sputtered (checked with SCOTCH tape pull test). However, when we do the electroplating of copper/Nickel on this layer, the sputtered film get pilled off from Alumina substrate (Gets off the substrate directly including sputtered layer even if scrubbed by finger). Please let me know, the probable reasons behind this and how we can prevent this pilling of sputtered thin film. We are using acid copper sulfate bath or copper Rochelle salt bath for copper electroplating and Nickel sulfamate bath for Nickel electrolytic deposition.
A possible reason I could imagine is that you are reducing the interface, so your layer has adhesion via Al3+-O2--Ti(n
Its very common issue with plated parts. You can solve this issue by treating plated parts with peroxide (few hrs) or running an extended etching step before sputtering.
Regards
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