Soldering of Carbon Materials Using Transition Metal Rich Alloys

Joining of carbon materials via soldering has not been possible up to now due to lack of wetting of carbons by metals at standard soldering temperatures. This issue has been a severely restricting factor for many potential electrical/electronic and mechanical applications of nanostructured and conventional carbon materials. Here we demonstrate the formation of alloys that enable soldering of these structures. By addition of several percent (2.5–5%) of transition metal such as chromium or nickel to a standard lead-free soldering tin based alloy we obtained a solder that can be applied using a commercial soldering iron at typical soldering temperatures of approximately 350 °C and at ambient conditions. The use of this solder enables the formation of mechanically strong and electrically conductive joints between carbon materials and, when supported by a simple two-step technique, can successfully bond carbon structures to any metal terminal. It has been shown using optical and scanning electron microscope im...