Silver – Bismuth – Tin

Andy Watson

Introduction

The Ag-Bi-Sn system has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent years owing to its possible application as a lead free solder material. However, the vast majority of the interest has been with respect to physical and mechanical properties rather than phase equilibria. Numerous reviews have appeared in the literature [1997Hua, 1997Lee, 1999Ohn, 2001Kat, 2001Sug, 2003Ohn] covering mechanical and physical property studies but all refer ultimately to the same small body of work conducted on the phase equilibria. Studies of the phase equilibria in the ternary system began with a thermodynamic calculation by [1994Kat] that used thermodynamic descriptions of the associated binary systems to extrapolate into the three component system. Predicted liquidus temperatures agreed well with experimental observations using DTA s...