Electroplating Titanium Copper Thin Films: Serious Peel-Off Issue

Summary for electroplating titanium copper thin films Discussion

Electroplating onto sputtered titanium and copper thin films is causing the whole metal stack to peel from the alumina substrate, even though the sputtered Ti/Cu layer adheres well before plating. The questioner, Shrikant Kulkarni, says the process uses 60 nm titanium and 400 nm copper on alumina, then copper, nickel, and gold are plated from an acid copper sulfate bath or copper Rochelle salt bath, followed by a nickel sulfamate bath. The thread title indicates the problem is that electroplating pulls the sputtered film off. Because the excerpt provided contains only the question and no answers, there is no documented diagnosis or remedy in the source text to summarize beyond the reported failure mode and process details.