Lead-free soldering: investigation of Cu-Sn-Sb system along the Sn:Sb = 1:1 isopleth

The Cu-Sn-Sb system has been experimentally investigated by a combination of optical microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and electron probe microanalysis (EPMA). DSC was used to identify a total number of five invariant ternary reactions and the Sn:Sb = 1:1 isopleth section up to 65 at.% Cu was constructed by combining the DSC data with the EPMA analyses of annealed alloys and literature information. The composition limits of the binary phases were detected