Effect of Carbon Nanotubes on the Shear Strength and Electrical Resistivity of a Lead-Free Solder

Abstract

In this study, the influence of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) on the shear strength and electrical resistivity of 95.8Sn-3.5Ag-0.7Cu lead-free solder was investigated. Composite solders containing various weight percentages of CNTs were synthesized, and electrical resistivity results of the bulk composite solders revealed that the presence of CNTs did not degrade the electrical performance of such solders. Tests conducted on lap-shear solder joint samples showed an improvement in the shear strength of the composite solders. However, at higher amounts of CNT additions (0.04 wt.% and 0.07 wt.%), the strength improvement was only marginal compared to that of the monolithic solder joint. A comparison of yield stress and ultimate stress test results between the solder joint and bulk solder also showed good agreement. Furthermore, the presence of CNTs in the solder matrix had a minimal influence on the thickness of the interfacial intermetallic compound layer formed during soldering.

Formation of nanojoints between carbon nanotubes and copper nanoparticles

“…CNTs and Cu nanoparticles, can form connections on the surface of the nanotubes or from end to end. This is different from the findings of earlier studies, in which connections either involved using bulk nanotubes or occurred on the surface of nanotubes [11,[25][26][27][28]. Fig.…”

Pulse Electrodeposition of Lead-Free Tin-Based Composites for Microelectronic Packaging

“…[41,95] Babaghorbani et al studied the electrical properties of nanocomposite solders in detail and reported that nano-sized reinforcements is advantageous in not degrading the electrical conductivity of the device, while micron sized particles can degrade the conductivity values . [96] This further confirms the unique properties of nanocomposite solders for electromigration property microelectronic packaging devices. Recently, it has been demonstrated the nanoparticles reinforced solders can be promising candidates for preventing electromigration failure in electronic packaging devices.…”

Corrosion resistance of Pb-free and novel nano-composite solders in electronic packaging

“…In order to solve these problems, efforts have been made to develop new Pb-free solders with a low melting point, good mechanical properties, better microstructure properties, and high creep resistance. Recently, Pb-free solders doped with nano-sized, nonreacting, noncoarsening oxide dispersoids have been identified as potential materials that could provide higher microstructure stability and better mechanical properties than the conventional solders [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Tsao et al [14][15][16] [19] or multi-walled carbon nanotubes [20,21] on the mechanical properties of nano-composite solders.…”

“…Tsao et al [14][15][16] [19] or multi-walled carbon nanotubes [20,21] on the mechanical properties of nano-composite solders. The data on the enhancement of the mechanical properties of nano-composite solders collected from some of the literature are listed in Table 2 [13,14,16,22,23]. Here, it should be stressed that although the addition of nanoparticles into solder matrices can improve the creep behavior [24], the effects on the corrosion resistance and mechanical properties of the nano-composite solders cannot be ignored.…”