MEASUREMENT OF ELECTROCHEMICAL CORROSION CURRENTS USING A MULTICHANNEL SUPERCONDUCTING QUANTUM INTERFERENCE DEVICE MAGNETOMETER

We have recently developed a high resolution magnetic imaging system for the measurement of magnetic fields generated by electrochemical corrosion reactions. We report here the first experiments with the new system. The magnetic field of our corrosion cells seems to be comprised of two separate components evolving with time in quite different ways. One component exhibits highly time-symmetric behavior with a period of order 20 min. The other builds up steadily in both frequency and amplitude with an average period of order 20 s. In addition, a switching between different corrosion current patterns has been observed.