The effect of grain size on ductility and impurity content of electroless copper deposits.
01 January 1989
The ductility of fine-grained electroless copper deposited on substrates activated with fine catalytic particles is significantly lower than that of the deposit plated epitaxially on large- grained copper. Based on the results of impurity analyses and ductility measurements for deposits plated on different substrates, it is proposed that the grain size effect in electroless copper is composed of two fundamentally different phenomena: (1) the known effect of grain boundaries as an obstacle to the slippage of crystal planes during plastic deformation ("conventional grain size effect"), and (2) the effect of hydrogen- containing voids on the continuity of grain boundaries ("hydrogen effect").