Cantilever testing is an underutilized test method from which results and interpretations promote greater understanding of the tensile and shear failure responses of interconnects, metallizations, or bonded joints. The use and analysis of this method were pursued through the mechanical testing of sintered-silver interconnects that joined Ni/Au-plated copper pillars or Ti/Ni/Ag-plated silicon pillars to Ag-plated direct bonded copper substrates. Sintered-silver was chosen as the interconnect test medium because of its high electrical and thermal conductivities and high-temperature capability-attractive characteristics for a candidate interconnect in power electronic components and other devices. Deep beam theory was used to improve upon the estimations of the tensile and shear stresses calculated from classical beam theory. The failure stresses of the sintered-silver interconnects were observed to be dependent on test-condition and test-material-system. The experimental simplicity of cantilever testing, and the ability to analytically calculate tensile and shear stresses at failure, result in it being an attractive mechanical test method to evaluate the failure response of interconnects.

Presently, the only commercially available power generating thermoelectric (TE) modules are based on bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) alloys and are limited to a hot side temperature of 250 °C due to the melting point of the solder interconnects and/or generally poor power generation performance above this point. For the purposes of demonstrating a TE generator or TEG with higher temperature capability, we selected skutterudite based materials to carry forward with module fabrication because these materials have adequate TE performance and are mechanically robust. We have previously reported the electrical power output for a 32 couple skutterudite TE module, a module that is type identical to ones used in a high temperature capable TEG prototype. The purpose of this previous work was to establish the expected power output of the modules as a function of varying hot and cold side temperatures. Recent upgrades to the TE module measurement system built at the Fraunhofer Institute for Physical Measurement Techniques allow for the assessment of not only the power output, as previously described, but also the thermal to electrical energy conversion efficiency. Here we report the power output and conversion efficiency of a 32 couple, high temperature skutterudite module at varying applied loading pressures and with different interface materials between the module and the heat source and sink of the test system. We demonstrate a 7% conversion efficiency at the module level when a temperature difference of 460 °C is established. Extrapolated values indicate that 7.5% is achievable when proper thermal interfaces and loading pressures are used.

The performance of thermoelectric (TE) materials has improved tremendously over the past decade. The intrinsic thermal and electrical properties of state-of-the-art TE materials demonstrate that the potential for widespread practical TE applications is very large and includes TE generators (TEGs) for automotive waste heat recovery. TE materials for automotive TEG applications must have good intrinsic performance, be thermomechanically compatible, and be chemically stable in the 400 K to 850 K temperature range. Both n-type and p-type varieties must be available at low cost, easily fabricated, and durable. They must also form robust junctions and develop good interfaces with other materials to permit efficient flows of electrical and thermal energy. Among the TE materials of interest for automotive waste heat recovery systems are the skutterudite compounds, which are the antimony-based transition-metal compounds RTE4Sb12, where R can be an alkali metal (e.g., Na, K), alkaline earth (e.g., Ba), or rare earth (e.g., La, Ce, Yb), and TE can be a transition metal (e.g., Co, Fe). We synthesized a considerable quantity of n-type and p-type skutterudites, fabricated TE modules, incorporated these modules into a prototype TEG, and tested the TEG on a production General Motors (GM) vehicle. We discuss our progress on skutterudite TE module fabrication and present module performance data for electrical power output under simulated operating conditions for automotive waste heat recovery systems. We also present preliminary durability results on our skutterudite modules.