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S-BOND BLOG

S-Bond® Solders At the Interface of the NanoBond® Process

Figure 1. Illustration of the NanoBond® / NanoFoil® heating process® (from www.indiumcorp.com)
Figure 1. Illustration of the NanoBond® / NanoFoil® heating process® (from www.indiumcorp.com)

S-Bond active solder layers have been shown in many applications to be the key ingredient that permits many ceramics and refractory metals to be bonded to largely coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) mismatched metals such as aluminum and copper. Indium Corporation offers a NanoBond® process that uses NanoFoil ® as local heat source to remelt preplaced solder layers without the need for the bulk heating of assembled components that have large CTE mismatch. Active S-Bond solders are applied as prelayers and have Ti, Ce, Ga and Mg additions that permit them to wet any ceramic or metal surface. Once the S-Bond pre-layers are applied to ceramic and/or metallic surfaces, conventional solders can be reflowed onto the S-Bond layer to create the preplaced solder layers that are remelted and bonded via the heat emitted from an ignited NanoFoil®. Figure 1 illustrates how temperatures of over 1,400 K are generated by an ignited nano-engineered foil. (more…)

S-Bond Joining of High Brightness LEDs

S-Bond active solder joining is emerging as an effective method to bond heat sinks to the back of High Brightness Light Emitting Diodes (HBLEDs). Active solders can wet and adhere to many of the thermally conductive ceramics (AlN, BeO, etc.) that are being used in HBLED’s and enable effective and thermally stable and conductive joints. (more…)

Fluxless Soldering of Sputter Targets

Figure 1. Schematic of sputtering process
Figure 1. Schematic of sputtering process

S-Bond soldering is seeing increased application for the solder bonding of sputter targets. Sputter targets are used in a wide range of applications for making thing films used in making electronic chips, solar cells, sensors, TV screens, optical components, electrical devices, and on and on… Sputter targets support a very large physical vapor deposition (PVD) and diverse technological base that is wide ranging and pervasive. Sputter targets under ion bombardment release target material atoms into a high vacuum chamber that under an electric field can be accelerated and deposited onto the component surface where the arriving atoms arrange themselves into a contiguous thin film. Figure 1 schematically illustrates the sputtering process. Ion bombardment is a high energy collisional process that can heat target materials to their melting points unless cooled; hence most sputter targets are bonded to a water cooled backing plate. Backing plates are made normally made from copper and are mounted to a water cooling manifold. Other metallic backing materials are also used. See Figures 2-3 for examples of bonded sputter targets. (more…)

Soldering Silicon Carbide (SiC) for Electronics and Optics

Figure 1. Steel fitting S-Bond joined to SIC
Figure 1. Steel fitting S-Bond joined to SIC

S-Bond active soldering of silicon carbide (SiC) has recently been demonstrated on a range of electronic and optical components, providing for metal to SiC joints in plug, mounting and/or water cooling fittings. Silicon carbide is ceramic semiconductor with good thermal conductivity (120 W/mK) and low thermal expansion ( 4 ppm / °C). Thermal conductivity is comparable to aluminum with 1/8 of aluminum’s thermal expansion coefficient (CTE), making it a very stable material. The manufacture techniques for SiC and Si:SiC have recently developed to permit more complex SiC based components. As a ceramic, SiC is very difficult to machine so normally powder sintering and infiltration and/or slip casting and sintering followed by infiltration is used making for making complex shapes. Because of its thermal, electrical and optical properties, SiC and SiC composites are seeing increased industrial application in electronics and optics thus driving an interest for robust SiC joining methods. For high temperature SiC applications vacuum active brazing has proven effective; however, for lower temperature electronic and optical applications, there has been interest in solder joining methods. (more…)