Nanoindentation of thin-film-substrate system: Determination of film hardness and Young's modulus

Abstract

ABSTRACT:In the present paper, the hardness and Young's modulus of film-substrate systems are determined by means of nanoindentation experiments and modified models. Aluminum film and two kinds of substrates, i.e. glass and silicon, are studied. Nanoindentation XP II and continuous stiffness mode are used during the experiments. In order to avoid the influence of the Oliver and Pharr method used in the experiments, the experiment data are analyzed with the constant Young's modulus assmnption and the equal hardness assumption. The volume fraction model (CZ model) proposed by Fabes et al. (1992) is used and modified to analyze the measured hardness. The method proposed by Doerner and Nix (DN formula) (1986) is modified to analyze the measured Young's modulus. Two kinds of modified empirical formula are used to predict the present experiment results and those in the literature, which include the results of two kinds of systems, i.e., a soft film on a hard substrate and a hard film on a soft substrate. In the modified CZ model, the indentation influence angle, ~, is considered as a relevant physical parameter, which embodies the effects of the indenter tip radius, pile-up or sink-in phenomena and deformation of film and substrate.

Identification of the elastic-plastic properties of CrN coating on elastic-plastic substrate by nanoindentation using finite element method-reverse algorithm

“…5(c). This behavior is like that observed for hard coatings deposited on soft substrates [34]. In addition, at large penetration depth, the model predicted values of (H) and (E) will be determined by the intrinsic hardness and Young's modulus of the steel substrate.…”

Thermo-mechanical properties of alumina films created using the atomic layer deposition technique

“…The output parameters are the required net force on the tip and the resulting harmonic contact stiffness of the tip/specimen system. Other approaches for the analysis of the indentation of film/substrate systems exist, including solely analytic means [16,[58][59][60][61][62][63] and numerical analysis [64][65][66]. The instrument measurements are normalized relative to the substrate properties for the FEA in Ref.…”

An indentation method for determining the film thickness, Young’s modulus, and hardness of bilayer materials

“…h max and ε are the maximum indentation depth and geometric constant respectively. However, the O-P method could not be directly used to characterize the mechanical properties of film-substrate materials, due to the substrate effect [6,27,28]. There are currently two methods to resolve issues due to the substrate effect; the first is based on the dimensional analysis method (DAM) and finite element method (FEM), and the other is based on the law of mixtures (LM).…”