surface roughness and decreases with the increase of coating thickness. This behaviour was also verified 
by electrochemical measurements [20,21]. 
acro-particles 
. These sites, 
in coated due 
ts and craters, 
3-type copper 
The inherent 
high hardness 
ype of copper 
ysity in these 
: due to fine- 
3 crossing the 
n the coating 
Fig. 6: SEM image of copper stringers on a copper decorated Zr-B coated steel . 
lo 
Fig. 7: General SEM image of a copper decorated TiN coated steel. 
of porosity in 3.2.5 Limitations of the Copper Decoration Technique 
¢ other hand, 
ing the porous The technique can only be applied as long as the potential of the substrate material is less noble than the 
mploying the Cu**/Cu® couple potential. Because of dendritic growth of copper on cemented nuclei, prolonged exposure 
sing substrate of the coated sample in the copper ion containing solution will give erratic results. Bare (uncoated) 
Prakt. Met. Sonderbd. 26 (1995) 449 
SR