Physical and chemical changes under thermal cycling of an extrinsic conducting polymer electrical contact

Lam, Liza, McBride, John and Swingler, Jonathan , Osaka University, University of Southampton (2006) Physical and chemical changes under thermal cycling of an extrinsic conducting polymer electrical contact. 23rd International Conference on Electrical Contacts, together with International Session on Electro-Mechanical Devices 2006, Sendai, Japan. 05 - 08 Jun 2006. pp. 485-490 .

Abstract

The increasing level of integrated wiring and electrical systems has led to much diversity in connector trends within the automotive industry. The use of Extrinsic Conducting Polymer (ECP) material has been exploited in the production of densely packed sockets and connectors. The ECP consists of metallized particles embedded within a polymer compound, which are formed into a cylindrical column. A matrix of ECP columns are assembled onto a polyimide substrate that is commonly sandwiched between the terminal pads of printed circuit boards (PCB) to form an ECP-contact system. The reliability and stability of different ECP-contact systems are evaluated under environmental conditions depicting practical situations where high temperatures and large thermal variations may be experienced in the engine compartment of a vehicle. In this paper, the investigation focuses on the influence of thermal shock cycles while measuring the resistance of the ECP-contact systems. It has been found that the change in resistance is mainly attributed to physical and chemical variations at the contact interface. In order to analyse physical deformations of the contact interfaces, surface profiles of the ECP columns and PCB terminal pads have been measured before and after the thermal shock test. Meanwhile, the non destructive analysis technique of Raman spectroscopy has been introduced to study the chemical changes.

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Contributors

Author: John McBride

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