A study on the thermal behaviour of solder glass

Vitreous solder glasses, such as Mansol #40 and FEG-2002, are commercialized solder glasses, which are compression sealing glasses that can be used to solder materials with expansions between 55-68 . 10(-7o)C(-1), such as Al2O3. In order to understand and tailor the thermal behaviour of solder glasses, cylindrical-like glasses were first carefully ground with a stainless steel mortar and pestle. Initially, no exothermic or endothermic data were obtained from the DTA/DSC curves except those relating to melting. However, exothermic peaks appeared after the glass samples were re-melted. In this work, kinetic parameters such as the activation energy, and the morphology of the devitrification mechanisms for two kinds of solder glasses were also investigated, using non-isothermal DTA techniques. The activation energies ranged from 220 to 235 kJ mol(-1) and the devitrification mechanism parameters were close to 1. This indicates that the devitrification mechanisms of the two kinds of solder glasses involve surface nuclei.