The wetting and spontaneous infiltration of ceramics by molten copper

Infiltration trials have been conducted by filling Cu tubes withceramic powders and melting them under argon. No externalforces were applied; successful infiltration of the ceramicrelied solely upon favourable metal-ceramic wetting conditions.Oxides and covalently bonded compounds could not bespontaneously infiltrated but transition metal compounds such asNbC, Cr3C2, WC, NbB2 and Cr2N were. It was impossible toinfiltrate any ceramics when oxygen was present in the system.Contact angle data in the literature were found to predict, withfair reliability, infiltration events in Cu-ceramic systems.The good correlation is thought to be due to the ease with whichthe oxide film can be prevented from forming on molten Cu duringboth sessile droplet experiments and infiltration processing.