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The ability to control the ionic environment in saline waters and aqueous electrolytes is useful for desalination as well as electronic biosensing. We demonstrate a method of electronic desalting at micro-scale through on-chip micro electrodes. We show that, while desalting is limited in bulk solutions with unlimited availability of salts, significant desalting of ≥1 mM solutions can be achieved in sub-nanoliter volume droplets with diameters of ∼250 μm. Within these droplets, by using platinum-black microelectrodes and electrochemical surface treatments, we can enhance the electrode surface area to achieve >99% and 41% salt removal in 1 mM and 10 mM salt concentrations, respectively. Through self-consistent simulations and experimental measurements, we demonstrate that conventional double-layer theory over-predicts the desalting capacity and, hence, cannot be used to model systems that are mass limited or undergoing significant salt removal from the bulk. Our results will provide a better understanding of capacitive desalination, as well as a method for salt manipulation in high-throughput droplet-based microfluidic sensing platforms.

We report the elastic properties of Cu3Sn superstructure based on first-principles calculations. Polycrystalline Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio are deduced from the calculated elastic stiffness. The calculations of electronic structures with the principal strains along different directions unravel the electronic nature of anisotropic elasticity of Cu3Sn. Weak Sn–Cu bonding in Cu3Sn suggests that Sn atoms are the dominant diffusion species, revealing the mechanism of vacancy formation within the Cu3Sn superstructure.

Owing to the line-to-bump configuration in flip chip solder joints, current crowding occurs when electrons enter into or exit from the solder bump. At the cathode contact, where electrons enter into the bump, current crowding induced pancake-type void formation has now been observed widely. At the anode contact, where electrons exit from the bump, we report here that whisker is formed. Results of both eutectic SnPb and SnAgCu solder joints are presented and compared. The cross-sectioned surface in SnPb showed dimple and bulge after electromigration, while that of SnAgCu remained flat. The difference is due to a larger back stress in the SnAgCu, consequently, electromigration in SnAgCu is slower than that in SnPb. Nanoindentation markers were used to measure the combined atomic fluxes of back stress and electromigration.

Melting of eutectic SnPb flip chip solder joints has been observed to occur frequently in dc electromigration tested with current density above 1.5×104A∕cm2 at an ambient temperature of 100°C. It has been found that it is not due to the Joule heating of the solder bump itself, but rather due to the Joule heating of the on-chip Al interconnects. The current density in the Al approaches 2×106A∕cm2 and electromigration has especially generated voids at the anode of the Al. The damage has greatly increased the resistance of the Al, which produces the heat needed to melt the solder joint. The results of electrothermal coupling analysis show that when the resistance of the Al line changed threefold, the solder bump melted.

Thermomigration in flip chip solder joints of eutectic SnPb has been studied at an ambient temperature of 100°C. Redistribution of Sn and Pb occurs with Pb moving to the cold end. A stepwise concentration profile is observed. Significantly, the lamellar microstructure becomes much finer after thermomigration. Since the lamellar interface is disordered and is a fast path of diffusion, it indicates a high rate of entropy production in the thermomigration, in agreement with Onsager’s principle of irreversible processes. The effect of entropy production on microstructure change is shown here. The molar heat of transport of Pb has been calculated to be −25.3kJ∕mole.

We have used composite flip chip solder joints to study thermomigration. The composite solder joint has 97Pb3Sn on the Si side and eutectic 37Pb63Sn on the substrate side. Redistribution of Sn and Pb occurs in thermomigration, and we found that Sn has moved to the Si side (the hot end) and Pb to the substrate side (the cold end). We estimate the driving force that a temperature gradient of 1000°C∕cm or a temperature difference of 10°C across a solder joint of 100μm in diameter is sufficient to induce the thermomigration.