Low-Temperature Sintering of Nanosilver Paste on a Gold Film Surface

Abstract Nanosilver paste with a low sintering temperature is a high-demand interconnection material for electronic devices and components due to its superior electrical, thermal, and thermomechanical properties, as well as the fact that it is lead free. This study presents a nanoscale silver paste that can be sintered at 300 °C using 60-nm silver particles and an ethyl cellulose solution. The rheological and thixotropic behaviors of the typical paste were characterized, and the paste's screen printing ability was analyzed in detail. The paste demonstrates typical shear thinning rheological behavior and thixotropy of pseudoplastic fluids. Thermal characteristics of the 60 nm silver particles were measured by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to obtain a proper sintering temperature schedule. In this report, we also discussed the solid content, thermodynamic driving force for densification, and sintering process of the nanosilver particles. A 83 wt% of silver solid content at a heating rate of 20 °C/min was favorable for achieving a proper sintering densification.