Surface and friction characterization by thermoelectric measurements during ultrasonic friction processes

Even though friction is one of the oldest problems in physics many aspects of friction processes are not clear today. We present an experimental setup , which permits the study of tribological systems by measuring the dissipat ed heat at the interface of two surfaces during a friction process with a t ime resolution of 1 ms. The apparatus is based on a standard ultrasonic wir e-bond machine used in semiconductor industries to connect the internal sem iconductor die to the external leads, but the standard bond wire is replace d by a thermocouple. To demonstrate the ability of the apparatus it will be shown that bond substrates used in semiconductor industries can be unequiv ocally characterized. (C) 2000 Published by Elsevier Science B.V. All right s reserved.