Elastic property of Cu3Sn determined by a first-principles calculation on the basis of its crystal substructure

As compared with the significance for controlling reliability of solder joints, research on elastic behavior of Cu3Sn has not been given enough consideration mainly because of the difficulty in preparing acceptable single-phase sample. In this paper, independent elastic constants of single crystal Cu3Sn are determined from first-principles calculations with a pseudopotential plane-wave method to completely characterize its polycrystalline elastic behavior and elastic anisotropy. The ideal elastic, shear and bulk modulus (E=147GPa, G=56GPa and K=132GPa), as well as the Poisson's ratio (nu=0.315) of Cu3Sn were predicted by Voigt-Reuss-Hill method. Cu3Sn exhibited distinct anisotropy in Young's modulus, as shown by the large difference between maximum and minimum, 44GPa, which may be partially responsible for the discrepancy in the experimental results, The Young's modulus of Cu3Sn with texture in real solder joints was also explored.