Shear strength of LED solder joints using SAC-nano Cu solder pastes**Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51604090) and the Zhejiang Province Key Laboratory of Soldering & Brazing Materials and Technology (No. 1402).

Abstract

The addition of Cu nanoparticles into the solder pastes by mechanical mixing method creates a positive effect on the microstructure refinement of the LED solder joints. The grain size of β-Sn and Cu6Sn5 decrease obviously due to the increasing concentration of the nanoparticles in the solder pastes. However, the addition of nanoparticles facilitates the formation of voids in the solder joints, especially when the concentration of nanoparticles is higher than 0.5 wt% in the solder pastes. Both the microstructure refinement and void percentage affect the shear strength of the solder joints. Since the increase of the void percentage is limited when the concentration of nanoparticles increases from 0 to 0.5 wt%, the microstructure refinement shows a dominant effect on the shear performance and thus improves the shear strength of the solder joints from 49.8 to 55 MPa. Further addition of nanoparticles in the solder pastes leads to a sharp increase of the void percentage. Consequently, the shear strength of the solder joints decreases from 55 to 48.8 MPa when the concentration of doped particles increases from 0.5 to 1 wt% in the solder pastes.