Regular Article

Ultra-low density metallic foams synthesized by contact glow discharge electrolysis (CGDE) for laser experiments^★

¹ Commissariat à LÉnergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives (CEA), VALDUC, 21120 Is-sur-Tille, France
² ICB, UMR 6303 CNRS-Université de Bourgogne Franche Comté, BP 47870, 21078 Dijon Cedex, France

^* e-mail: sandrine.rocher@cea.fr

Received: 16 June 2017
Received in final form: 22 September 2017
Accepted: 5 December 2017
Published online: 6 February 2018

Abstract

The goal of this work is to realize metallic foams synthesized by contact glow discharge electrolysis with specific characteristics. In this paper, we show the results of our studies, consisting in investigating parameters that influence the foams characteristics. Thus, the morphology of metallic foams is examined through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) observations with the acid nature. Moreover, the evolution of the mass and the volume of metallic foams with two experimental parameters (overvoltage and gold concentration) is also investigated. The acid nature affects the foams microscopic structure highlighted by the SEM observations, but for now no valid explanation to this behaviour was found. We prove that the mass deposited on the electrode is dependent on the ionic salt concentration, whereas the overvoltage only affects the foam overall density.