Effect of copper in the stabilization of Al/CuO energetic semiconductor bridge

The long-term storage performance of energetic multilayer nanofilms is of great significance for their applications. In this paper, it is proposed to add a 10 nm Cu barrier layer between Al/CuO composite films to increase their storage stability. The Al/CuO composite film and Al/Cu/CuO composite film were aged for 14 days in an environment with a relative humidity of 40% and a temperature of 71 °C. Scanning electron microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry were used to analyze the microstructure and thermodynamic properties of the energetic films before and after aging, and the electrical detonation performance and ignition ability of energy-containing semiconductor bridges were studied. The results indicate that after aging for 14 days in an environment with a relative humidity of 40% and a temperature of 71 °C, the Al layer of the Al/CuO composite film becomes thinner, the Al2O3 interface layer increases, and the heat release decreases. The interlayer microstructure of the Al/Cu/CuO energetic multilayer nanofilms did not change significantly, and the addition of a 10 nm Cu layer formed a low-temperature Al–Cu alloy, reducing the reaction initiation temperature from 626 to 570 °C. The critical ignition time and critical ignition energy of the Al/CuO-energetic semiconductor bridge (ESCB) increased, the flame duration shortened from 440 to 300 μs, the flame size decreased by 50%, the plasma temperature decreased, and aging had no significant effect on the electrical explosion performance of Al/Cu/CuO-ESCB. After aging for 14 days in an environment with a relative humidity of 40% and a temperature of 71 °C, the maximum ignition gap of B/KNO3 for Al/CuO-ESCB decreased from 1.4 to 1.2 mm, while the maximum ignition gap for Al/Cu/CuO-ESCB remained at 1.6 mm, which significantly improved the ignition performance and long storage performance of the energetic semiconductor bridge.