Porosity effect on the mechanical properties of nano-silver solder

Abstract Nano-silver has the characteristics of low-temperature sintering and high-temperature service, which can reduce the thermal stress in the packaging process. Because of the high melting point and good high-temperature mechanical properties, silver is widely used in high-temperature packaging and connection fields. Sintered nano-silver has a porous structure on the microscopic level, it is necessary to study the mechanical properties of nano-silver with porosity. In this paper, we proposed a method for finite element modeling of porous nano-silver. Finite element analysis and nanoindentation test were used to investigate the Young’s modulus of nano-silver. At the same time, and the quadratic equation of porosity and Young’s modulus was fitted, and it was verified by Ramakrishnan model and nanoindentation results. These results show that the Young’s modulus of nano-silver decreases with the increase of internal porosity, and the Young’s modulus and porosity show a quadratic function correlation. As the porosity increases, the Young’s modulus of nano-silver decreases at a slower rate. The modeling method presented in this paper can well predict the Young’s modulus of nano-silver.