Finite Element Analysis to the Constitutive Behavior of Sintered Silver Nanoparticles Under Nanoindentation

Finite element (FE) simulation is adopted as a fundamental tool to evaluate the mechanical reliability of packaging structures for electronic devices. Nevertheless, the determination of mechanical properties of sintered silver nanoparticles (AgNP) remains challenging as the traditional tensile test is difficult to be performed at a limited size. In the current study, spherical nanoindentation is utilized to measure the applied load-penetration depth responses of sintered AgNP reinforced by SiC microparticles at various weight ratios (0.0, 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 wt.%). To describe the elasto-plastic behavior of this heterogeneous material, FE analysis is performed to simulate the indentation behavior and determine the parameters in the modified power-law model by fitting the average applied load-penetration depth responses. To overcome the uniqueness problem, the Young's modulus is directly determined by continuous stiffness measurement technique and the proposed constitutive model can provide a reasonably accurate mechanical estimation of sintered AgNP. The effect of SiC content on sintered AgNP is discussed by correlating the morphology observed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and the constitutive parameters obtained from the FE simulations.