Morphology and Growth Kinetics of Straight and Kinked Tin Whiskers

Susan, Donald Francis; Michael, Joseph R.; Grant, Richard P.; McKenzie, Bonnie Beth; Yelton, William Graham

doi:10.1007/s11661-012-1488-7

Cited by 28 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The summary data are presented in Table II. In addition, we have verified that the whisker length statistics obeys the earlier established log-normal patterns 18,21,22 as shown in Fig. 8.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

Electric field stimulated growth of Zn whiskers

et al. 2016

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We have investigated the impact of strong (∼10 4 V/cm) electric fields on the development of Zn whiskers. The original samples, with considerable whisker infestation were cut from Zn-coated steel floors and then exposed to electric fields stresses for 10-20 hours at room temperature. We used various electric field sources, from charges accumulated in samples irradiated by: (1) the electron beam of a scanning electron microscope (SEM), (2) the electron beam of a medical linear accelerator, and (3) the ion beam of a linear accelerator; we also used (4) the electric field produced by a Van der Graaf generator. In all cases, the exposed samples exhibited a considerable (tens of percent) increase in whiskers concentration compared to the control sample. The acceleration factor defined as the ratio of the measured whisker growth rate over that in zero field, was estimated to approach several hundred. The statistics of lengths of e-beam induced whiskers was found to follow the log-normal distribution known previously for metal whiskers. The observed accelerated whisker growth is attributed to electrostatic effects. These results offer promise for establishing whisker-related accelerated life testing protocols. C 2016 Author(s). All article content, except where otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license

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“…The summary data are presented in Table II. In addition, we have verified that the whisker length statistics obeys the earlier established log-normal patterns 18,21,22 as shown in Fig. 8.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 82%

Electric field stimulated growth of Zn whiskers

et al. 2016

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“…The observed distributions of this kind were best approximated as log-normal. 10,58,59 Their analytical form is derived here.…”

Section: Whisker Statisticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Electrostatic Theory of Metal Whiskers

Карпов

2014

Phys. Rev. Applied

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Metal whiskers often grow across leads of electric equipment and electronic package causing current leakage or short circuits and raising significant reliability issues. The nature of metal whiskers remains a mystery after several decades of research. Here, the existence of metal whiskers is attributed to the energy gain due to electrostatic polarization of metal filaments in the electric field. The field is induced by surface imperfections: contaminations, oxide states, grain boundaries, etc. A proposed theory provides closed form expressions and quantitative estimates for the whisker nucleation and growth rates, explains the range of whisker parameters and effects of external biasing, and predicts statistical distribution of their lengths.

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“…Whisker heights (10 −4 < ∼ h < ∼ 1 cm) and radii (10 −5 < ∼ R < ∼ 10 −3 cm) are characterized by broad uncorrelated log-normal distributions. [13][14][15] It was established that material for MW is supplied from the large areas far away from MW locations. 24 A succinct summary of whisker properties was given by G. Davy.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Microscopic Structure of Metal Whiskers

et al. 2018

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We present TEM images of the interior of metal whiskers (MW) grown on electroplated Sn films. Along with earlier published information, our observations focus on a number of questions, such as why MWs' diameters are in the micron range (significantly exceeding the typical nano-sizes of nuclei in solids), why the diameters remain practically unchanged in the course of MW growth, what is the nature of MW diameter stochasticity, and what is the origin of the well-known striation structure of MW side surfaces. In an attempt to address such questions we performed an in-depth study of MW structure at the nanoscale by detaching a MW from its original film, reducing its size to a thin slice by cutting its sides by a focused ion beam, and performing TEM on that structure. Our observations revealed a rich nontrivial morphology suggesting that MW may consist of many side by side grown filaments. This structure appears to extend to the outside whisker surface and be the reason for the striation. In addition, we put forward a theory where nucleation of multiple thin metal needles results into micron-scale and larger MW diameters. This theory is developed in the average field approximation similar to the roughening transitions of metal surfaces. The theory also predicts MW nucleation barriers and other observed features.PACS numbers:

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Morphology and Growth Kinetics of Straight and Kinked Tin Whiskers

Cited by 28 publications

References 21 publications

Electric field stimulated growth of Zn whiskers

Electric field stimulated growth of Zn whiskers

Electrostatic Theory of Metal Whiskers

Microscopic Structure of Metal Whiskers

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