Effect of Humidity on Growth of Oxide Film on Surface of Copper Contacts(Contact Phenomena,<Special Section>Recent Development of Electromechanical Devices (Selected Papers from ICEC2006))

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Contact surfaces are exposed to the atmosphere in general applications. Therefore, gases in the atmosphere such as oxygen and H_2O are adsorbed on and react with the contact surface. Products formed on the surface such as copper oxide films degrade contact resistance characteristics. This surface contamination is an important problem for electrical contact applications. The author has studied the effect of humidification on contact resistance characteristics. In this paper, the effect of humidity on the growth of an oxide film on a copper surface was clarified. An increase in the humidity results in a decrease in the thickness, in contrast, a decrease in the humidity increases the thickness linearly. Changes in the oxide film thickness based on the level of humidity were measured by ellipsometry. Surface state changes influenced by humidification were analyzed topo-graphically using a scanning tunneling microscope. The mechanism of the effect of humidity on the film thickness was discussed on the basis of the deduction of the copper oxide film by H_2 from the adsorbed H_2O. Moreover, the changes in contact resistance levels for both static and sliding contacts due to humidity were measured, and a dependence on humidity was found.
社団法人電子情報通信学会の論文
2007-07-01