Pure Copper and Dilute Copper Alloy Wires Being Controlled Trace Impurities and Additive Elements

Enhancing the Properties of Oxygen-Free Copper for High-Current Applications through Trace Element Additions

“…In general, oxygen-free copper inevitably contains several ppm of solute S as an impurity. 3,4,7) The concentration of S in the samples was 6 at ppm. Thus, it is conceivable that the trace amount of added Mg reacted with the 6 at ppm of S which resulted in the formation of the second-phase MgS particles.…”

“…To preserve the high electrical conductivity, concentration of the solute elements was restricted to no more than 200 at ppm. There are numerous reports of changes in the properties of oxygen-free copper with the addition of various solute elements; [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] however, systematic investigations on changes to electrical conductivity and various other characteristics due to trace addition of solute elements at extremely low concentrations (200 at ppm or less) are limited due to the difficulty of detecting changes in electrical conductivity relative to the trace addition of solute elements at extremely low concentrations. [2][3][4][5][6] Furthermore, with the exception of Matsunaga et al, 1) systematic investigations that feature Mg as one of the solute elements have not been examined within the range of this study.…”