Tuesday, 15 October 2019: 16:20
Room 303 (The Hilton Atlanta)
The systematic study of the nonlinear dynamics of different systems can yield important scientific advances. Examples range from the better understanding of living systems, remarkably nonlinear, to the development of new, self-organized materials. In this work, for the first time, quasiperiodic oscillations were observed during the electro-deposition of Cu/Sn multilayers (Figure 1a). Return maps were used to characterize the quasiperiodicity, and the continuous wavelet transform was employed to isolate and determine the oscillation frequencies (Figure 1b and c). To further study the mechanism in play, it was determined the apparent activation energy, by tracking the oscillation frequencies and the currents in the cyclic voltammetry experiments under different temperatures. Two different energy intervals are showed, and those are mainly attributed to: activation barriers (~50 kJ.mol-1) closely related to a fast time scale of the feedback loops responsible for the current oscillations and, diffusional processes (~20 kJ.mol-1) connected with the slow modulations of the oscillation amplitude, giving rise to the quasiperiodic dynamics. As self-organization in chemical systems is quickly developing into a powerful strategy for designing new functional materials, available kinetic parameters become of major interest in a rational design approach. In fact, the quasiperiodic behavior observed during the oscillatory deposition of Cu/Sn yields a material with unique properties and opens the perspective for the synthesis of more intricate morphologies. This work is ready for publication and will be submitted within few days.


