Abstract
Spatially localized stress fields produced by instrumented, sharp indentation probes are a route to testing the mechanical properties of materials at the smallest length scales. Here we provide direct experimental measurement of indentation plasticity with contact strain fields involving up to a few thousand atoms. We observe two types of nanoscale plasticity: on the pristine surface, high-resolution sensing shows an overall smooth, remarkably reversible indentation response interjected by sudden discrete drops in indenter load. The jumps often occur in pairs with pop-in motion during loading healed by a corresponding pop-out motion on the unload stroke to define a compact hysteresis loop. Despite the general reversibility, cyclic indentation at a single sample position leads to a subtle plastic ratchet and shakedown behaviour with displacements correlated to the underlying gold lattice constant. Our results concur with a previously established picture of thermally activated atomistic plasticity, but suggest a new mechanism at reduced scales that suppresses permanent mass transport.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$259.00 per year
only $21.58 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Pethica, J. B., Hutchings, R. & Oliver, W. C. Hardness measurement at penetration depths as small as 20-nm. Phil. Mag. A 48, 593–606 (1983).
Oliver, W. C. & Pharr, G. M. An improved technique for determining hardness and elastic-modulus using load and displacement sensing indentation experiments. J. Mater. Res. 7, 1564–1583 (1992).
Fisher-Cripps, A. C. Nanoindentation (Springer, New York, 2002).
Sutton, A. P. & Pethica, J. B. Inelastic flow processes in nanometer volumes of solids. J. Phys. Condens. Matter 2, 5317–5326 (1990).
Landman, U., Luedtke, W. D., Burnham, N. A. & Colton, R. J. Atomistic mechanisms and dynamics of adhesion, nanoindentation, and fracture. Science 248, 454–461 (1990).
Kelchner, C. L., Plimpton, S. J. & Hamilton, J. C. Dislocation nucleation and defect structure during surface indentation. Phys. Rev. B 58, 11085–11088 (1998).
Gannepalli, A. & Mallapragada, S. K. Atomistic studies of defect nucleation during nanoindentation of Au (001). Phys. Rev. B 66, 104103 (2002).
Li, J., Van-Vliet, K. J., Zhu, T., Yip, S. & Suresh, S. Atomistic mechanisms governing elastic limit and incipient plasticity in crystals. Nature 418, 307–310 (2002).
Lilleodden, E. T., Zimmerman, J. A., Foiles, S. M. & Nix, W. D. Atomistic simulations of elastic deformation and dislocation nucleation during nanoindentation. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 51, 901–920 (2003).
Horstemeyer, M. F., Baskes, M. I. & Plimpton, S. J. Length scale and time scale effects on the plastic flow of fcc metals. Acta Mater. 49, 4363–4374 (2001).
Knap, J. & Ortiz, M. Effect of indenter radius size on Au(001) nanoindentation. Phys. Rev. Lett. 90, 226102 (2003).
Chiu, Y. L. & Ngan, A. H. W. Time-dependant characteristics of incipient plasticity in nanoindentation of a Ni3Al single crystal. Acta Mater. 50, 1599–1611 (2002).
Schuh, C. A., Mason, J. K. & Lund, A. C. Quantitative insight into dislocation nucleation from high-temperature nanoindentation experiments. Nature Mater. 4, 617–621 (2005).
Gane, N. & Bowden, F. P. Microdeformation of solids. J. Appl. Phys. 39, 1432–1435 (1968).
Corcoran, S. G., Colton, R. J., Lilleodden, E. T. & Gerberich, W. W. Anomalous plastic deformation at surfaces: Nanoindentation of gold single crystals. Phys. Rev. B 55, R16057–R16060 (1997).
de la Fuente, O. R. et al. Dislocation emission around nanoindentations on a (001) fcc metal surface studied by scanning tunnelling microscopy and atomistic simulations. Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 036101 (2002).
Fraxedas, J., Garcia-Manyes, S., Gorostiza, P. & Sanz, F. Nanoindentation: Toward the sensing of atomic interactions. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 99, 5228–5232 (2002).
Gerberich, W. W., Venkataraman, S. K., Huang, H., Harvey, S. E. & Kohlstedt, D. L. The injection of plasticity by millinewton contacts. Acta Mater. 43, 1569–1576 (1995).
Kiely, J. D. & Houston, J. E. Nanomechanical properties of Au (111), (001), and (110) surfaces. Phys. Rev. B 57, 12588–12594 (1998).
Fink, H. W. Mono-atomic tips for scanning tunneling microscopy. IBM J. Res. Dev. 30, 460–465 (1986).
Cross, G. et al. Adhesion interaction between atomically defined tip and sample. Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4685–4688 (1998).
Miller, M. K., Cerezo, A., Hetherington, M. G. & Smith, G. D. W. Atom Probe Field Ion Microscopy (Clarenden, Oxford, 1996).
Stalder, A. & Dürig, U. Ultrahigh-vacuum compatible cooling and vibration isolation stage. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 64, 3644–3646 (1993).
Johnson, K. L. Contact Mechanics (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1985).
Van-Vliet, K. J., Li, J., Zhu, T., Yip, S. & Suresh, S. Quantifying the early stages of plasticity through nanoscale experiments and simulations. Phys. Rev. B 67, 104105 (2003).
Reed-Hill, R. E. Physical Metallurgy Principles (Van Norstrand, New York, 1973).
Hofer, W. A., Fisher, A. J., Wolkow, R. A. & Grütter, P. Surface relaxations, current enhancements, and absolute distances in high resolution scanning tunnelling microscopy. Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 236104 (2001).
Olesen, L. et al. Apparent barrier height in scanning tunnelling microscopy revisited. Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 1485–1488 (1996).
Israelachvili, J. Intermolecular and Surface Forces (Academic, San Diego, 1992).
Dürig, U., Zuger, O. & Pohl, D. W. Observation of metallic adhesion using the scanning tunnelling microscope. Phys. Rev. Lett. 65, 349–352 (1990).
Rose, J. H., Ferrante, J. & Smith, J. R. Universal binding-energy curves for metals and bimetallic interfaces. Phys. Rev. Lett. 47, 675–678 (1981).
Maugis, D. & Pollock, H. M. Surface forces, deformation and adherence at metal microcontacts. Acta Metall. 32, 1323–1334 (1984).
Maugis, D. Contact, Adhesion, and Rupture of Elastic Solids (Springer, New York, 2000).
Luan, B. Q. & Robbins, M. O. The breakdown of continuum models for mechanical contacts. Nature 435, 929–932 (2005).
Gerberich, W. W. et al. Reverse plasticity in single crystal silicon nanospheres. Int. J. Plasticity 21, 2391–2405 (2005).
Kramer, D. E., Yoder, K. B. & Gerberich, W. W. Surface constrained plasticity: oxide rupture and the yield point process. Phil. Mag. A 81, 2033 (2001).
Stalder, A. & Dürig, U. Study of yielding mechanics in nanometer-sized Au contacts. Appl. Phys. Lett. 68, 637–639 (1996).
Agrait, N., Yeyati, A. L. & van Ruitenbeek, J. M. Quantum properties of atomic-sized conductors. Phys. Rep. 377, 81–279 (2003).
Joyce, S. A. & Houston, J. E. A new force sensor incorporating force-feedback control for interfacial force microscopy. Rev. Sci. Instrum. 62, 710–715 (1991).
Flynn, C. P. Point defect reactions at surfaces and in bulk metals. Phys. Rev. B 71, 085422 (2005).
Hannon, J. B. et al. Surface self-diffusion by vacancy motion: Island ripening on Cu(001). Phys. Rev. Lett. 79, 2506–2509 (1997).
Ondrejcek, M., Rajappan, M., Swiech, W. & Flynn, C. P. Step fluctuation spectroscopy of Au(111) by LEEM. Surf. Sci. 574, 111–122 (2005).
van Gastel, R., Somfai, E., van Albada, S. B., van Saarloos, W. & Frenken, J. W. M. Nothing moves a surface: Vacancy mediated surface diffusion. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 1562–1565 (2001).
Walko, R. J. Field-ion microscopy of metal-metal contacts. Surf. Sci. 70, 302–324 (1978).
Müller, E. W. & Nishikawa, O. Adhesion or cold welding of materials in space environment. ASTM Special Publ. 431, 67 (1968).
Ohmae, N. Field ion microscopy of microdeformation induced by metallic contacts. Phil. Mag. A 74, 1319–1327 (1996).
Fian, A. & Leisch, M. Study on tip-substrate interactions by STM and APFIM. Ultramicroscopy 95, 189–197 (2003).
Kuipers, L., Hoogeman, M. S. & Frenken, J. W. M. Jump to contact and neck formation between Pb surfaces and a STM tip. Surf. Sci. 340, 231–244 (1995).
Gimzewski, J. K. & Moller, R. Transition from the tunneling regime to point contact studied using scanning tunnelling microscopy. Phys. Rev. B 36, 1284–1287 (1987).
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge useful discussions with J. Pethica, S. Biswas and H. Özgür Ozer. P.G. acknowledges financial support from the National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, Le Fonds Québécois de la Recherche sur la Nature et les Technologies (FQRNT), and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary information, supplementary figures 1-4 and references (PDF 378 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Cross, G., Schirmeisen, A., Grütter, P. et al. Plasticity, healing and shakedown in sharp-asperity nanoindentation. Nature Mater 5, 370–376 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1632
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat1632
This article is cited by
-
Methods to evaluate the twin formation energy: comparative studies of the atomic simulations and in-situ TEM tensile tests
Applied Microscopy (2020)
-
In-Situ Transmission Electron Microscope High Temperature Behavior in Nanocrystalline Platinum Thin Films
JOM (2016)
-
A crack extension force correlation for hard materials
International Journal of Fracture (2007)
-
Novel routes to nanocrystalline mechanical characterization
JOM (2007)