The effect of curing agent on the properties of silver paste electrically conductive adhesives(ECAs)

The Electrically Conductive Adhesives(ECAs) has better printing performance than the solder paste, which can meet the requirements of higher precision. In this paper, three different kinds of organic matter were used as curing agents in an ECAs to find out the effect on that. The effect of curing agent on the conductive properties of silver paste ECAs has been systematically investigated by volume resistivity test, and the curing loss rate was used to indicate the curing properties. In addition, the mechanical properties on different curing time were analyzed by comparing the shear stress through shear strength test. The analysis of volume resistivity test indicated that extension curing time will make the unevenness of silver particle become larger, which can benefit the conductivity of silver paste ECAs. Whats more, and the result of shear strength tests show that when curing time up to 20 minutes, the shear strength of containing triethanolamine and dicyandiamide silver paste ECAs will be more than 10MPa when curing time up to 20 minutes. The curing loss rate indicate that the silver paste ECAs which contains triethanolamine is the most stable one.