art%3A10.1007%2Fs11664-016-5074-4.pdf (12.67 MB)
Investigation of whisker growth from alkaline non-cyanide zinc electrodeposits
journal contribution
posted on 2016-11-25, 14:16 authored by Liang Wu, Mark Ashworth, Geoffrey WilcoxElectroplated zinc finishes have been widely used in the packaging of electronic products for many years as a result of their excellent corrosion resistance and relatively low cost. However, the spontaneous formation of whiskers on zinc electroplated components, which are capable of resulting in electrical shorting or other damaging effects, can be highly problematic for the reliability of long-life electrical and electronic equipment. This work investigated the mechanism for whisker growth from zinc electrodeposited mild steel substrates. The incubation time for whisker growth from the surface of nodules on the surface of the electrodeposit was considerably reduced compared with that from the planar deposit surface. Recrystallisation of the as-deposited columnar structure was observed at the whisker root. This result is consistent with some recent whisker growth models based on recrystallisation. There was no evidence of iron-zinc (Fe-Zn) intermetallic formation at the iron/zinc (Fe/Zn) interface or within the zinc coating beneath the whiskers.
Funding
The authors would like to thank the United Kingdom Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Innovative Electronics Manufacturing Research Centre for funding this research through the WHISKERMIT programme at Loughborough University.
History
School
- Science
Department
- Chemistry
Published in
Journal of Electronic MaterialsCitation
WU, L., ASHWORTH, M.A. and WILCOX, G.D., 2017. Investigation of whisker growth from alkaline non-cyanide zinc electrodeposits. Journal of Electronic Materials, 46(2), pp.1114-1127.Publisher
© The Author(s). This article is published with open access at Springerlink.comVersion
- VoR (Version of Record)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/4.0/Acceptance date
2016-10-18Publication date
2017Notes
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.ISSN
0361-5235eISSN
1543-186XPublisher version
Language
- en