Mateability of tin to gold, palladium, and silver

It is shown experimentally that tin in combination with itself, as well as with gold, palladium, or silver is susceptible to fretting corrosion. Rates of degradation depend upon the metals in contact and upon the state and type of lubrication. In both the clean and lubricated state, the degradation of tin-to-gold and tin-to-palladium would be considered worse than tin-to-tin. The performance of tin-to-silver is slightly better than tin-to-tin. Antifretting contact lubricant formulations are preferred to antiwear contact lubricants. A proprietary formulation is shown to be very effective in stabilizing contact resistance for the tin-to-tin and tin-to-silver combinations. However, increases in contact resistance (on the order of five times the initial values) for the tin-to-gold and tin-to-palladium interfaces demonstrate that such combinations should not be encouraged for critical circuit applications in environments where fretting reactions are likely.<>