Sintering mechanism between silver nanoparticles and SiC/Cu plates: A molecular dynamics simulation

A "sandwich" MD model composed of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and SiC/Cu plates was constructed to examine the interconnection quality of interfaces between nanoparticles and substrate/chip. The sintering simulations were conducted and the evolution of the sintering neck was investigated. After sintering, the overall and interfacial tensile simulations for whole sample and interfaces were carried out to study the influence of sintering temperature on interconnection quality. The result shows that the width of sintering neck increases with the raise of the sintering temperature. Moreover, the interfacial strength of two surfaces is higher than the tensile strength of sintered AgNPs, and the overall tensile fracture energy is inversely proportional to the width difference between the two sintering necks. In addition, the interfacial strength is determined by the width of the sintering neck. However, when sintering temperature is low, the interfacial strength could be dominated by the dislocation density near the sintered interface.