Electrodeposition of Strong Glassy Metals

Thin-walled structures made of strong glassy nickel and glassy nickel-cobalt alloys, with tailorable low residual stresses, and with high resistance to permanent plastic deformation, can be formed by use of an electrodeposition process. This process was developed to enable the fabrication of lightweight, high-quality x-ray mirrors that do not undergo unacceptably large distortions when differential thermal contraction upon cooling is used to release the mirror deposits from their electrodeposition mandrels. This process supplants an older pure-nickel electrodeposition process where it was necessary to form relatively thick deposits in order to make them strong enough to resist distortion in the presence of stresses imparted during release.