Adhesion & Bonding
Adhesion involves joining two or more surfaces together. Failure can occur during this process when contaminants are introduced into the process, or if the adhesive components are formulated incorrectly. Many different failure modes and causes of failures exist for different materials systems.
- For polymer packaging, surface pretreatments and organic coatings, failures may occur due to contaminants in or on the joining surfaces.
- In the case of metallic lead failure in microelectronics, the cause may be due to impurities, an oxide layer or buried species that diffuse to the adhering surface during or after bonding.
Uncovering the source of adhesion and bonding problems can require surface-sensitive analytical tools. The failure site can be investigated by examining both sides of the delaminated interface.
Primary Analytical Techniques
- Auger Electron Spectroscopy (Auger)
- Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR)
- Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (TOF-SIMS)
- X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) and Electron Spectroscopy for Chemical Analysis (ESCA)
Secondary Analytical Techniques