ELECTROCHEMICAL INTERCONNECTIONS: HYDRODYNAMIC, GROWTH PATTERNS AND CONTACT MORPHOLOGY. EXPERIMENTAL, THEORETICAL, AND PARALLEL COMPUTATIONAL SIMULATION STUDIES.

GUILLERMO MARSHALL, F. V. MOLINA, G. GONZÁLEZ , S. DENGRA AND E. ARIAS

Beijing, China

Workshop; Workshop on Pattern Formation and Self-Organization in Nonlinear Complex Systems; 2001

Institue of Physics and Chinese Academy of Sciences

Ion transport and growth morphology in monopolar and bipolar ramified deposits in thin-layer cells , under constant and periodic electric field pulses, are studied through experimental measurements and theoretical and computational modeling. The use of optical techniques and micron sized particle image velocimetry, allow the tracking of the convection, migration and concentration fronts, the determination of incubation and contact times and the measurement of fluid velocity. The theoretical macroscopic model describes the diffusive, migratory and convective motion of ions in a fluid subject to an electric field. The equations are written in terms of 13 dimensionless quantities, in particular, the Migration, Poisson, Reynolds and Electric and Gravity Grashof numbers, which values determine the prevailing ion transport mode and thus the characteristic of the ramified deposit. Numerical simulations in realistic cell configurations using parallel computing are presented. Theory and simulations predict full front interaction, vortex generation and merging and a space-time fronts evolution, in close agreement with the results observed in the experiments.