ATOMISTIC SCALE STUDY OF LOCAL HEATING INTO SILICON:NANOINDENTATION USING MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATION

ABSTRACT.This paper presentsthe atomistic scale study of the effects of local heating during nanoindentation into Silicon (Si). Nanoindentation techniques and experiments with fundamental principles of MD simulations were at first introduced.The indentation processesof indentation depths an order of magnitude much smaller than experimental values and over indentation times several orders of magnitude shorter. The effects of local heating were studied using Force-Depths (F-D) curves and snapshots. The influences of the indentation speeds and temperature on the deformative behaviour of Silicon (Si) were also discussed. The force-depth curves signified the temperature influence on silicon during retraction for thermalized speeds, implying that the topology of the silicon surface did not change after tip retraction. Snapshots of the simulations into Si showed that slower indentation speeds would exhibit a decrease in the number of heated atoms.

KEYWORDS.Nanoindentation, indentation depths, indentation speeds, thermalized,simulations.

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