In this FLEXINAR, Dr. Ian Tevis, CTO of SAFI-Tech, will be discussing their supercooled liquid metal microcapsules for electronics assembly that separate the use of metal solder from the high heat needed to melt it.
The capsules are approximately one micrometer in size and are comprised of liquid metal solder inside a robust, flexible nanofilm. The nanofilm keeps the metal solder in a liquid state at room temperature and below, far cooler than the point where it normally should be solid. Unlike current industry manufacturing practices that require significant heat in order to use metal solder or cure adhesives, NO heat is needed for SAFI-Tech microcapsules. Rupturing or dissolving the capsule shell allows the liquid metal inside to flow out, wet the contact surfaces, and solidify in a few seconds to create a full metallic interconnect.
Liquid metal cores contain solder alloys such as SnAgCu (SAC305) and BiSn and contain no lead, mercury, cadmium, or gallium. Using significantly lower temperatures in electronics manufacturing greatly broadens the design and materials choices available to unlock the door to many new opportunities. The result: smaller and more innovative devices with next generation features for sectors such as defense, automotive, consumer, aerospace, and health.
Presenter
Dr. Ian Tevis is the CTO and Co-founder of SAFI-Tech. He is a Materials Chemist with a PhD from Northwestern University. Ian became very familiar with the challenges heat can give in electronics processing during his PhD thesis work on self-assembling small molecule based solar cells. Before starting SAFI-Tech, Ian was a research scientist at NanoIntegris Technologies working on process and product development of carbon nanotube inks. Ian has been working on supercooled liquid metal particle technology since 2015, first as a postdoc at Iowa State University and now as the CTO at SAFI-Tech.