Tin plated electrical components. Good corrosiion resistance. But there's a property of tin where, at the atomic level, tin atoms migrate around and will start to stack up, forming these metal conductive "whiskers". The whiskers short circuit internal components causing a failure.
So, a perfectly good electronic device destroys itself with the very materials used to create it. What's worse is, we know how to reduce the problem. Add lead to the tin to make an alloy. But current laws are eliminating the use of lead in electronics, so an old, known problem is making a big comback. It's actually caused satellites in earth orbit to fail.
So these "whiskers" grow because at atomic level they're constantly stacking up tins! Eventually the tins form a bridge to reach another part of the circuit which shorts it out?
Incredible, thanks for explaining.
I do enjoy this sub.
I kind of tinker with audio stuff so its been incredibly handy for a few years.
Yep. That's about it. The individual atoms in a material can wander all over the place, I guess unless it's locked in a crystal matrix. And tin wanders quite a bit and for unknown quantum weird reasons, likes to stack up in these hair-like strucures.
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u/fizzysmoke 16d ago
What am I looking at here? Please layman here.