• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.460-468
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• 2022

Due to its high electrical conductivity, low contact resistance, good weldability and high corrosion resi-stance, gold is widely used in electronic components such as connectors and printed circuit boards (PCB). Gold ion salts currently used in gold plating are largely cyan-based salts and non-cyanic salts. The cya-nide bath can be used for both high and low hardness, but the non-cyanide bath can be used for low hardness plating. Potassium gold cyanide (KAu(CN)₂) as a cyanide type and sodium gold sulfite (Na₃[Au(SO)₃]₂) salt as a non-cyanide type are most widely used. Although the cyan bath has excellent performance in plating, potassium gold cyanide (KAu(CN)₂) used in the cyan bath is classified as a poison and a toxic substance and has strong toxicity, which tends to damage the positive photoresist film and make it difficult to form a straight side-wall. There is a need to supplement this. Therefore, it is intended to supplement this with an eco-friendly process using sodium sulfite sodium salt that does not contain cyan. Therefore, the main goal is to form a gold plating layer with a controllable hardness using a non-cyanide gold plating solution. In this study, the composition of a non-cyanide gold plating solution that maintains hardness even after annealing is generated through gold-palladium alloying by adding thallium, a crystal regulator among electrolysis factors affecting the structure and hardness, and changes in plating layer structure and crystallinity before and after annealing the correlation with the hardness.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.5
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• pp.289-295
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• 2008

The effect of the alloy elements(Si/Mn) ratio on the coating quality including wettabilty with molten zinc, galvannealing kinetics and crater has been investigated in interstitial-free high strength steel(IFHSS) containing Si and Mn. When the Si/Mn ratio was below 0.75, IF-HSS exhibited a good wettability leading to a good galvannealed coating quality after annealing at $800^{\circ}C$ for 40s in $15%H_2-N_2$ mixed gas with dew point $-60^{\circ}C$. In contrast, the wettability and galvannealed coating quality were deteriorated in the Si/ Mn ratio above 0.75. It is shown that they have relevance to oxides forms by selective oxidation on the steel surface. The oxide particles dispersed on the steel surface with a surface coverage of below 40% resulted in good wettability and galvannealed coating quality. The oxide particle is mainly consisted of $Mn_2SiO_4$ with low contact angle in molten zinc. On the other hand, the continuous oxide layer on the steel surface, such as network- and film-type,caused to poor wettability and galvannealed coating quality. The coverage of oxide layer was above 80%, and its chemical species was $SiO_2$ with high contact angle in molten zinc. Consequently, the Si/Mn alloy ratio played an importance role in galvannealed coating quality of IF-HSS.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.12
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• pp.937-944
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• 2011

Studies have been carried out in order to reduce fuel-cladding chemical interaction (FCCI) behavior of metallic fuel in sodium-cooled fast reactors (SFR) using an electroplating technique. A $20{\mu}m$ thick Cr layer has been plated by the electrochemical method in the Sargent bath over the HT9 (12Cr-1Mo) clad material and diffusion couple tests of the U-10Zr metallic fuel as well as the rare earth alloy (70Ce-29La) have been conducted. The results show that the Cr plating can prevent FCCI behavior along the fuel-clad interface. However, cracks developed through the thickness during plating, which resulted in the migration of some fuel constituents. Variation of bath temperature, application of pulse current, and post heat treatment have been conducted to control such cracks. We found out that some conditions like the pulse current and the post heat treatment enhanced the layer property by reducing the internal cracks and improving the diffusion couple test.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.8
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• pp.495-505
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• 2008

With the high proportion of zinc coated steels in body-in-white assembly, newly developed surface roughness textured galvannealed steel sheets have been introduced. In this study, zinc coated and surface roughness textured steel sheets were welded by resistance spot welding to investigate its weldability including electrode wear test. Based on the results of tensile-shear test, nugget diameter changes, and electrode tip growth test, it was clear that both surface roughness textured steels (GA-T and GA-E) showed good weldability. Also, there was no large difference in weldability and electrode wear behavior between GA-T and GA-E steels which have different surface roughness morphology. An analysis of electrode degradation showed Fe and Zn penetration through the electrode tip surface at 2400 welds reached $55{\sim}60{\mu}m$ and $75{\sim}80{\mu}m$, respectively. Therefore, there is no significant effect of surface roughness morphology on spot weldability of surface roughness textured galvannealed steel sheets. However, slight difference in thickness of alloying layers existing on electrode tip was found between GA-T and GA-E steels.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.47 no.10
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• pp.675-680
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• 2009

Effects of $85^{\circ}C/85%$ Temperature/Humidity (T/H) treatment conditions on the peel strength of an electroless-plated Ni/polyimide system were investigated from a $180^{\circ}$ peel test. Peel strength between electroless-plated Ni and polyimide monotonically decreased from $37.4{\pm}5.6g/mm$ to $22.0{\pm}2.7g/mm$ for variation of T/H treatment time from 0 to 1000 hrs. The interfacial bonding mechanism between Ni and polyimide appears to be closely related to Ni-O bonding at the Ni/polyimide interface. The decrease in peel strength due to T/H treatment appears to be related to polyimide degradation due to moisture penetration through the interface and the bulk polyimide itself.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.47 no.12
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• pp.834-841
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• 2009

A study on the welding of electrogalvanized TRIP (Transformation-Induced Plasticity) steels was done to compare the life of the electrode and the alloying phenomena on the electrode tip surface using singlephase AC and inverter-DC resistance welding processes. A longer life of the electrode (>200 welds) was achieved using the inverter-DC welding process. The tensile shear strength was higher in the electrode life test when welded with the inverter DC welding machine it maintained a higher value even when the welding nugget diameter was smaller than specified. When spot-welding was conducted using the single-phase AC welding process, a higher wear rate of the electrode was observed compared to that with the inverter-DC process. An alloying layer used to determine the rate of electrode growth showed differences in the metallurgical features of the surface alloying and Zn penetration depending on whether the single-phase AC process or the inverter-DC welding process was used. Moreover, changes in the dynamic resistance during the electrode life test were correlated with the electrode wear (or growth) rate.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.46 no.7
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• pp.427-436
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• 2008

The effect of dewpoints on annealing behavior and coating characteristics such as wettability and galvannealing kinetics was studied by annealing 0.3wt%Si - 0.1~0.4wt% Mn added interstitial-free high strength steels(IF-HSS). The 0.3wt%Si-0.1wt%Mn steel exhibited good wettability with molten zinc and galvannealing kinetics after annealing when the dewpoint of $H_2-N_2$ mixed gas was above $-20^{\circ}C$. It is shown that the wettability and galvannealing kinetics are directly related to the coverage of the external(surface) oxide formed by selective oxidation during annealing. At $N_2-15%H_2$ annealing atmosphere, the increase of dewpoint results in a gradual transition from external to internal selective oxidation. The decrease of external oxidation of alloying elements with a concurrent increase of their subsurface enrichment in the substrate, showing a larger surface area that was free of oxide particles, contributed to the improved wettability and galvannealing kinetics. On the other hand, the corresponding wettability and galvannealing kinetics were deteriorated with the dewpoints below $-20^{\circ}C$. The continuous oxide layer of network and/or film type was formed on the steel surface, leading to the poor wettability and galvannealing kinetics. It causes a high contact angle between annealed surface and molten zinc and plays an interrupting role in interdiffusion of Zn and Fe during galvannealing process.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.4
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• pp.281-290
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• 2011

In order to gain better understanding of the selective surface oxidation and its influence on the galvanizability of a transformation-induced plasticity (TRIP) assisted steel containing 1.5 wt.% Si and 1.6 wt.% Mn, a model experiment has been carried out by depositing Si and Mn (each with a nominal thickness of 10 nm) in either monolayers or bilayers on a low-alloy interstitial-free (IF) steel sheet. After intercritical annealing at $800^{\circ}C$ in a $N_2$ ambient with a dew point of $-40^{\circ}C$, the surface scale formed on 590 MPa TRIP steel exhibited a microstructure similar to that of the scale formed on the Mn/Si bilayer-coated IF steel, consisting of $Mn_{2}SiO_{4}$ particles embedded in an amorphous $SiO_{2}$ film. The present study results indicated that, during the intercritical annealing process of 590 MPa TRIP steel, surface segregation of Si occurs first to form an amorphous $SiO_{2}$ film, which in turn accelerates the out-diffusion of Mn to form more stable Mn-Si oxide particles on the steel surface. During hot-dip galvanizing, particulate $Fe_{3}O_{4}$, MnO, and Si-Mn oxides were reduced more readily by Al in a Zn bath than the amorphous $SiO_{2}$ film. Therefore, in order to improve the galvanizability of 590 TRIP steel, it is most desirable to minimize the surface segregation of Si during the intercritical annealing process.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.49 no.5
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• pp.411-418
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• 2011

The current study investigates the electroplating characteristics of Sn-Cu eutectic micro-bumps electroplated on a Si chip for flip chip application. Under bump metallization (UBM) layers consisting of Cr, Cu, Ni and Au sequentially from bottom to top with the aim of achieving Sn-Cu bumps $10\times10\times6$ ${\mu}m$ in size, with 20${\mu}m$ pitch. In order to determine optimal plating parameters, the polarization curve, current density and plating time were analyzed. Experimental results showed the equilibrium potential from the Sn-Cu polarization curve is -0.465 V, which is attained when Sn-Cu electro-deposition occurred. The thickness of the electroplated bumps increased with rising current density and plating time up to 20 mA/$cm^2$ and 30 min respectively. The near eutectic composition of the Sn-0.72wt%Cu bump was obtained by plating at 10 mA/$cm^2$ for 20 min, and the bump size at these conditions was $10\times10\times6$ ${\mu}m$. The shear strength of the eutectic Sn-Cu bump was 9.0 gf when the shearing tip height was 50% of the bump height.

• Journal of the Korean institute of surface engineering
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• v.55 no.2
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• pp.120-132
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• 2022

In the non-cyanide-based electroless Au plating solution using thiomalic acid as a complexing agent and aminoethanethiol as a reducing agent, analysis of each component constituting the plating solution is essential for the analysis of the reaction mechanism. And component analysis in the plating solution is important for monitoring component changes in the plating process and optimizing the management method. Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) method is rapid, sensitive and quantitative and could be readily applied to analysis of Auⁿ⁺ ion, complexing agent and reducing agent in electroless Au plating solution. In this study, the capillary electrophoresis method was used to analyze each component in the electroless Au plating solution in order to elucidate the complex bonding form and the plating mechanism of the non-cyanide-based electroless Au plating bath. The purpose of this study was to establish data for optimizing the monitoring and management method of plating solution components to improve the uniformity of precipitation and stability. As a result, it was confirmed that the analysis of thiomalic acid as a complexing agent and Auⁿ⁺ ions and the analysis of aminoethanethiol as a reducing agent were possible by capillary electrophoresis. In the newly developed non-cyanide-based electroless Au plating solution, it was confirmed that Auⁿ⁺ ions exist in the form of Au⁺ having a charge of +1, and that thiomalic acid and Au⁺ are combined in a molar ratio of 2 : 1. In addition, it was confirmed that aminoethanethiol can form a complex by combining with Au⁺ ions depending on conditions as well as acting as a reducing agent.