Characteristics of Ni-Fe-P alloys prepared from basic electroless plating baths using sodium citrate as a complexing agent were studied. Moreover, the effects of reducing agents and pH values of solutions on the electroless Ni-Fe-P alloys were examined as well. Straight cracks were often found on the surface of electroless Ni-Fe-P alloys deposited from a bath with hydrazine as the reducing agents. On the contrary, sodium hypophosphite renders almost no cracks, which gives a high deposition rate of about 10 ~ 14 µm/hr. The resulted electroless deposits contain 2 ~ 5 at% of Fe and 13 ~ 19 at % of P, as revealed by the EDX. The corrosion resistance of these alloys was measured with a potentiostat, which shows the corrosion potential of the examined speciemens was around – 350 mV.

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