File:Tin whisker ESA385984.jpg
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Summary
DescriptionTin whisker ESA385984.jpg |
English: This may resemble an alien landscape, but it is actually a microscopic view of tin used to solder electronic components. The long shard rising from the surface is a ‘tin whisker’ – a spontaneous outgrowth representing a clear and present danger to space missions.
The phenomenon was first identified within terrestrial electronics, but these whiskers are known to grow rapidly out of pure tin in the weightlessness, vacuum and temperature extremes of space. Typically, these crystalline filaments are just a few thousands of a millimetre thick, though may extend more than a thousand times further in length. They are electrically conductive and so can threaten catastrophic short circuits: the US Galaxy IV telecommunications satellite was lost due to this issue in 1998. The traditional method of preventing tin whiskers was to add lead – but lead is toxic, so its use in solder has been phased out through the EU’s Reduction of Hazardous Substances directive. ESA and European space industry have been granted a waiver to continue using tin–lead alloy for solder, but not an indefinite one. “We’ve been researching alternative methods to arrest the growth of tin whiskers,” explains ESA materials engineer Jussi Hokka. “We’ve investigated a technique called atomic layer deposition, widely used in the semiconductor industry to lay down a metal oxide film just a few nanometres deep. “Over a time period of up to a year, this application has led to a significant reduction in the number of tin whiskers, although we don’t yet know if this is due to the surface barrier laid down or some factor of the overall process.” ESA worked with a consortium led by Finnish specialist Picosun, supported by Finnish packaging specialist Poltronic Ltd and Loughborough University in the UK. Follow-up research is now underway. Success will undoubtedly have wider applications: tin whiskers are also re-emerging as a problem of terrestrial electronics now that pure tin solder is in widespread use. ESA’sTommaso Ghidinicomments: “Tin whiskers remain in many respects a mysterious metallurgical phenomenon. But if this technique proves to be successful, we could safely use pure tin as a green option, foregoing carcinogenic lead – not only for space but also for automotive, aeronautics and large other industrial domains, while guaranteeing equivalent engineering performance.” |
Date | |
Source | http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/11/Tin_whisker |
Author | European Space Agency |
Permission (Reusing this file) |
ESA,CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO |
Title InfoField | Tin whisker |
Set InfoField | Technology image of the week |
Licensing
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This media was created by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Where expressly so stated, images or videos are covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO) licence, ESA being an Intergovernmental Organisation (IGO), as defined by the CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO licence. The user is allowed under the terms and conditions of the CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO license to Reproduce, Distribute and Publicly Perform the ESA images and videos released under CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO licence and the Adaptations thereof, without further explicit permission being necessary, for as long as the user complies with the conditions and restrictions set forth in the CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO licence, these including that:
See the ESA Creative Commons copyright notice for complete information, and this article for additional details.
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![]() ![]() ![]() This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO license. Attribution: ESA, CC BY-SA IGO 3.0
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This file, which was originally posted to
https://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/11/Tin_whisker, was reviewed on 18 April 2018 by reviewer Wdwd, who confirmed that it was available there under the stated license on that date.
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Captions
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1 November 2017
File history
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Date/Time | Thumbnail | Dimensions | User | Comment | |
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current | 16:55, 1 November 2017 | ![]() | 1,010 × 679 (264 KB) | Fæ | European Space Agency, Id 385984, http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2017/11/Tin_whisker, User:Fæ/Project_list/ESA |
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Width | 1,010 px |
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Height | 679 px |
Pixel composition | Black and white (Black is 0) |
Orientation | Normal |
Number of components | 4 |
Horizontal resolution | 132 dpi |
Vertical resolution | 132 dpi |
Software used | Adobe Photoshop CC 2014 (Macintosh) |
File change date and time | 09:20, 1 November 2017 |
Exif version | 2.21 |
Color space | Uncalibrated |
Unique ID of original document | 6F8D04E47D013FC4EBD591A5BEC9DFBA |
Date and time of digitizing | 16:21, 22 August 2017 |
Date metadata was last modified | 10:20, 1 November 2017 |