Mechanism of contact enhancing chemicals for electrical interconnection

Contact enhancing chemicals, the magic fluids which vanquish intermittent c ontacts, have been in existence for many years, However, their use has been very limited due to the lack of understanding of their conduction mechanis m. In this paper, electrochemical experiments were conducted to reveal the mechanism of conduction through the contact enhancing chemicals, The result s have invalidated claims by several manufacturers of contact enhancing che micals that conduction takes place by means of "tunneling," It has been dem onstrated that these novel chemicals function through a rather common condu ction mechanism, by serving as an electrolyte for metal dissolution, ionic transport, and metal deposition. Metallurgical examinations have provided d irect evidence of the existence of metallic dendrites between mating elemen ts that have been treated with the chemicals, and confirmed the electrochem ical reaction mechanism for contact enhancement.