Magnetic field-assisted sintering of nickel-doped silver microwire to improve densification and conductivity

Abstract In this paper, a doping and field-assisted sintering process is provided to accelerate the densification of silver microwires. Silver microwire doped with a small amount of nickel nanoparticles sintered in a magnetic field can efficiently improve the densification and conductivity of wires. The silver microwire doped with nickel mass fraction of 5 wt.% was sintered in a magnetic field with the intensity of 15 mT achieved the maximum shrinkage. Compared with the wire made of pure silver nanoparticles sintered without magnetic field, the shrinkage rate increased by 67.7%, and the resistivity reduced by 15.5%. We reasonably analyzed the wire densification mechanism by scanning the surface and internal structure of the microwire.