TY - JOUR
T1 - The Contact Resistance Force Relationship of Intrinsically Conducting Polymer Interface
AU - Lam, Yu-Zhi
AU - Swingler, Jonathan
AU - McBride, John W.
PY - 2006/6
Y1 - 2006/6
N2 - Investigations on contact connector materials for different applications such as in the automotive industry have focused toward the increasing interest of using conducting polymers, as compared to conventional metallic contacts. The aim is to achieve overall improvements in performance as well as cost effectiveness. Currently, extrinsic conducting polymers (ECPs) are employed as conductive coats or adhesives at contact interfaces. However, frictional abrasion within the metal doped polymer (ECP) causes fretting corrosion, which leads to instability in the contact resistance. To overcome this, intrinsically conducting polymers (ICPs) are explored. Hemispherical contact coatings were fabricated using poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiopene) (PEDOT) or polyaniline/polyvinylchloride (PANI/PVC) commodity blends. Contact resistances were taken using four-wire resistance measurement techniques. The conductivities of in-house fabricated ICP contacts were found to be in the range of 10-2 Smiddotcm-1. The response relating the change of contact resistance under varying compression force appeared to be repeatable with minimum deviation of 2%. The surface profiles of the ICP contacts were also recorded by an optical confocal system. The initial investigation results presented in this paper were used to evaluate and validate the hypothesis of employing ICP contacts to eliminate or minimize wearing and fretting effects.
AB - Investigations on contact connector materials for different applications such as in the automotive industry have focused toward the increasing interest of using conducting polymers, as compared to conventional metallic contacts. The aim is to achieve overall improvements in performance as well as cost effectiveness. Currently, extrinsic conducting polymers (ECPs) are employed as conductive coats or adhesives at contact interfaces. However, frictional abrasion within the metal doped polymer (ECP) causes fretting corrosion, which leads to instability in the contact resistance. To overcome this, intrinsically conducting polymers (ICPs) are explored. Hemispherical contact coatings were fabricated using poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiopene) (PEDOT) or polyaniline/polyvinylchloride (PANI/PVC) commodity blends. Contact resistances were taken using four-wire resistance measurement techniques. The conductivities of in-house fabricated ICP contacts were found to be in the range of 10-2 Smiddotcm-1. The response relating the change of contact resistance under varying compression force appeared to be repeatable with minimum deviation of 2%. The surface profiles of the ICP contacts were also recorded by an optical confocal system. The initial investigation results presented in this paper were used to evaluate and validate the hypothesis of employing ICP contacts to eliminate or minimize wearing and fretting effects.
U2 - 10.1109/TCAPT.2006.875903
DO - 10.1109/TCAPT.2006.875903
M3 - Article
SN - 1521-3331
VL - 29
SP - 294
EP - 302
JO - IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies
JF - IEEE Transactions on Components and Packaging Technologies
IS - 2
ER -