Nanoscale soldering of axially positioned single-walled carbon nanotubes: a molecular dynamics simulation study

The miniaturization of electronics devices into the nanometer scale is indispensable for next-generation semi-conductor technology. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are considered to be the promising candidates for future interconnection wires. To study the carbon nanotubes interconnection during nanosoldering, the melting process of nanosolder and nanosoldering process between single-walled carbon nanotubes are simulated with molecular dynamics method. As the simulation results, the melting point of 2 nm silver solder is about 605 K because of high surface energy, which is below the melting temperature of Ag bulk material. In the nanosoldering process simulations, Ag atoms may be dragged into the nanotubes to form different connection configuration, which has no apparent relationship with chirality of SWNTs. The length of core filling nanowires structure has the relationship with the diameter, and it does not become longer with the increasing diameter of SWNT. Subsequently, the dominant mechanism of was analyzed. In addition, as the heating temperature and time, respectively, increases, more Ag atoms can enter the SWNTs with longer length of Ag nanowires. And because of the strong metal bonds, less Ag atoms can remain with the tight atomic structures in the gap between SWNT and SWNT. The preferred interconnection configurations can be achieved between SWNT and SWNT in this paper.