Aspects of coarsening in eutectic Sn–Pb

The coarsening of Pb-rich Pb domains in eutectic Sn–Pb solder during isothermal annealing has been studied in some detail. The importance of anisotropy and of coalescence events and the occurrence of a dynamic scaling regime are discussed. Orientation imaging microscopy reveals the presence of the following two distinct crystallographic orientations between Pb and ßSn lamellae in quenched eutectic Sn–Pb solder: [0 0 1]Pb[1 0 1]ßSn and (0 1 0)Pb(1 1 1)ßSn; The domain size distribution function is found to approach a dynamic scaling regime and coalescence of domains is shown to be the dominant mechanism for the growth of domains larger than the mean domain size.