Indentation creep and hardness of a Sn-Ag-Cu solder reinforced with Ni-coated carbon nanotubes

In the present study, the powder metallurgy route was used to successfully incorporate Ni-coated carbon nanotubes into Sn-Ag-Cu solder, to form a nanocomposite solder. The creep behavior and hardness of composite and Sn-Ag-Cu solder samples were studied using the Berkvich depth-sensing indentation at room temperature. Characterization results revealed that with increasing addition of Ni-coated carbon nanotubes, an increasing improvement in the creep behavior of composite solder was observed. Moreover, the results also showed that the nanoindentation hardness increased by 18.1% with the incorporation of 0.03 wt.% of Ni-coated CNTs.