Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

Reactive multilayers grown by sputter deposition have recently attracted interest for applications including material joining (soldering, brazing) and energy sources. For these applications, a metal-metal multilayer is typically designed to have many discrete reactant layers and a composition that corresponds to the peak enthalpy for a given material system. A thickness of reactive multilayers as small as 1.6 microns has recently been demonstrated for microelectronics joining (Braeuer et al. ECS Transactions, 2012). However, little is known about the minimal multilayer thickness required for ensuring a self-sustained, high temperature synthesis (SHS) reaction.

With this presentation, we describe the behavior of thin reactive Al/Pt multilayers tested as freestanding foils and as adhered films. For multilayers having a total thickness of 1.6 microns, self-sustained, high temperature reactions readily occur when the multilayer is tested as a freestanding foil. When coupled to a semi-infinite substrate, the likelihood of reaction is reduced depending on the multilayer design.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration undercontract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

In addition to being the anchor material for microelectronics, silicon is widely used as the basis of high aspect ratio microfabrication for MEMS with applications ranging from inertial sensors to neural probe arrays. Carbon nanotube templated microfabrication (CNT-M), extends the palate of materials and structures for high aspect ratio microfabrication beyond those achievable with vertically etched bulk silicon. In CNT-M, 3-D forests of patterned vertically-aligned carbon nanotubes are grown as a high aspect ratio framework and then the “forests” are infiltrated with a secondary material by chemical vapor deposition. Precision structures (including nanoporous structures) with very high aspect ratios (greater than 400:1) can be generated with CNT-M. The infiltration materials range from ceramics to metals and include silicon dioxide, silicon nitride, carbon, nickel, and yes silicon. We are using CNT-M to fabricate functional structures for applications including mechanical actuation, chemical separations and detection, and electrochemical energy storage.

With the recently renewed interest in additive manufacturing (AM), there has been a recent upswell in the number of AM processes available. One such process that could be useful for reactive materials utilizes a curable liquid binder to adhere loose powders into coherent solid forms. In this process, tap-density powders are nearly saturated with binder, so the resulting film of binder present on each particle can represent a significant contaminant to the reaction system. In this work, the effect of the binder on reaction behavior in the Ni-Al system is explored. First, the distribution of binder and its elemental constituents are studied by electron microscopy and energy dispersive spectroscopy for powders with varying levels of binder saturation. Then, the effect of binder on the reaction kinetics and overall behavior is investigated. The change in overall heat release and apparent activation energy are quantified through differential scanning calorimetry, and the bulk reaction propagation rate is measured by high speed photography as a function of the weight fraction of binder in the compact. Finally, the reaction products are identified through x-ray diffraction. In all tests, comparisons are made to the neat Ni-Al system.

This work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract DE-AC52-07NA27344.