Short circuit diffusion in CuSn6/Ni/Au planar tricouples

To investigate processes of short circuit and uphill diffusion, low-temperature diffusion experiments were carried out with sandwich samples of CuSn6/Ni/Au in the kinetic regimeB after Harrison. Two kinds of base material CuSn6 with different grain sizes were chosen. The first material was cold rolled CuSn6 with a mean grain size of 3–4 μm. The second was annealed CuSn6 with a mean grain size of 40 μm. The Ni and Au layers with thicknesses in the μm range were deposited by galvanization. The sheets were prepared by ion beam slope cutting, characterized by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. After annealing at 576 K up to 120 d, the samples were investigated with glow discharge spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy. Concentration penetration plots made with glow discharge spectroscopy showed a different diffusion behaviour dependent on the CuSn6 material. The diffusion processes in the samples of cold rolled CuSn6 are more extensive than in the annealed CuSn6 samples. To find out causes of this phenomenon, a model of short circuit diffusion was developed and concentration penetration curves were calculated numerically with the finite difference method. Images of an ion beam slope cut sample show grain growth in the Au layer.