Temperature-Dependent Sheet and Contact Resistivity Measurements on Ag and Ag-Ni Circuit Pastes

Abstract

Here, a van der Pauw method was used to compare the 25-450oC sheet resistivity of Ag-Ni electrical contacts to those made from commercially-available Heraeus C8710 and DAD-87 silver circuit pastes. In addition, a circular transfer length method was used to compare the 25-600oC contact resistivity of Ag-Ni, Heraeus C8710, and DAD-87 on lanthanum strontium manganate (LSM). After 10 hours at 750oC in air, the Ag-Ni sheet resistivity was nearly double that of the commercial Ag pastes. However, after 10 hours at 750oC in air, the Ag-Ni to LSM contact resistivity was between that of Heraeus C8710 and DAD-87. The low Ag-Ni sheet resistivity of ~10-6 ohm-cm, the low Ag-Ni to LSM contact resistivity of ~10-4 ohm-cm2, and the previously-observed >10 times higher adhesion strength of Ag-Ni (compared to Heraeus C8710 or DAD-87) on ceramic substrates, suggests that Ag-Ni may be useful for a variety of high-temperature electronic circuit/current collector applications.