The authors exposed a non-equilibrium dynamic counterion and coion analyte concentration to an AC electric field to selectively concentrate peptides at the poles of a cation-selective granule. The counterion polarization results from the focusing of the electric field show a discontinuous drop in the intra-granule counterion electromigration flux at the pole. The coion concentration polarizatio...

The electromigration-induced failure in the composite solder joints consisting of 97Pb–3Sn on the chip side and 37Pb–63Sn on the substrate side was studied. The under-bump metallization ~UBM! on the chip side was 5 mm thick electroplated Cu coated on sputtered TiW/Cu and on the substrate side was electroless Ni/Au. It was observed that failure occurred in joints in a downward electron flow ~fro...

Thermal strains and electromigration can cause voids to grow in conductor lines on semiconductor chips. This long-standing failure mode is exacerbated by the recent introduction of low-permittivity dielectrics. We describe a method to calculate the volume of a saturated void VSV , attained in a steady state when each point in a conductor line is in a state of hydrostatic pressure, and the gradi...

Capillary electrophoresis techniques often involve ion-concentration shock waves in an electrolyte solution, propagating under the effect of an external electric field. These shock waves are characterized by self-sharpening gradients in ion concentrations and electrical conductivity that are collinear with the electric field. The coupling of electric field and fluid motion at the shock interfac...

Grain boundaries affect the migration of atoms and electrons in polycrystalline solids, thus influencing many of the mechanical and electrical properties. By introducing nanometer-scale twin defects into copper grains, we show that we can change the grain-boundary structure and atomic-diffusion behavior along the boundary. Using in situ ultrahigh-vacuum and high-resolution transmission electron...

The reliability of photovoltaic (PV) modules operating under various weather conditions attracts the manufacturer’s concern since several studies reveal a degradation rate higher than 0.8% per year for silicon-based technology and reached up to 2.76% in harsh climate. lifetime PV is decreased because numerous modes. Electromigration delamination are two failure modes that play significant role ...

We use a first-principles based kinetic Monte Carlo simulation to study the movement of a solid iron nanocrystal inside a carbon nanotube driven by the electrical current. The origin of the iron nanocrystal movement is the electromigration force. Even though the iron nanocrystal appears to be moving as a whole, we find that the core atoms of the nanocrystal are completely stationary, and only t...

This paper investigates the impact of Joule heating on the scaling trends of advanced VLSI interconnects. It shows that the interconnect Joule heating can strongly affect the maximum operating temperature of the global wires which, in turn, will constrain the scaling of current density to mitigate electromigration and, thus, greatly degrade the expected speed improvement from the use of low-k d...