Direct bonding for dissimilar metals assisted by carboxylic acid vapor

This study developed a low-temperature low-vacuum direct bonding process for dissimilar metals via surface modification with formic acid vapor. Robust Cu/Ag and Cu/Zn bonding with a shear strength higher than 25 MPa can be achieved by thermal compression at 275 and 300 °C, respectively. CuZn 5 and Cu 5 Zn 8 formed at the interface of Cu/Zn joints, while no distinct interdiffusion layers appeared at the Cu/Ag interface. At elevated temperatures, the shear strength of Cu/Zn joints decreased significantly and turned to be weaker than Cu/Ag at 250 °C due to the softening of Zn. All the joints performed well subjected to thermal cycling up to 1000 times. However, compared with Cu/Ag joints with stable mechanical performance suffering aging at 250 °C, the shear strength of Cu/Zn degraded drastically up to 200 h, and after that it remained almost constant, which can be ascribed to the competitive growth between CuZn 5 and Cu 5 Zn 8 , resulting in collapse and oxidation of CuZn 5 .