9355372 Groza The propose of this project is to explore the feasibility of a joint American - Romanian research effort on diffusion measurements to develop new, lead-free soldering alloy for micro-electronic applications. The focus is twofold: (a) to explore the feasibility of performing diffusion experiments in a Romanian laboratory and (b) to improve the complex diffusion programs developed in Romania by using powerful American computational systems. The completion of this work will demonstrate our ability to further develop a joint program on diffusion studies of new soldering alloys. These alloys are critical for environmentally safe processing and therefore considerably contribute to the development of new and viable technologies to benefit both countries. We expect this short term collaboration to strengthen our chances to develop a long term interaction between scientists in the United States and Eastern Europe on priority engineering issues. ***
