Sintering Mechanism Analysis of Cu Nanoparticles via Molecular Dynamics

In this article, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were used to analyze the thermodynamic behavior of Cu nanoparticles (NPs) sintering at different temperatures and pressures. Sintering simulations of Cu NPs were performed at temperatures of 400 ~ 800K and pressures of 0 ~ 50 MPa to investigate the effects of temperature and pressure on the sintering of Cu NPs. The results showed that: the influence of pressure decreased when the temperature was relatively high, and temperature gradually replaced pressure as the main factor for the sintering process. The dislocation occurred dramatically in a short time and then became stable gradually. Increasing the temperature and pressure could reduce voids of the sintered Cu. Compared to the temperature factor, increasing the pressure had a better effect on reducing the voids.