A New Aspect of Eutectic Bonding for Gold Soldering

The mechanism of diffusion of silicon in polycrystalline gold has been studied by PIXE, high energy deuteron microprobe,optical and electron microscopies. A silicon film deposited on gold annealed at a temperature slightly higher than the Au-Si eutectic temperature (363°C) diffuses by precipitation of a gold-silicon eutectic alloy in the grain boundaries of the substrate.