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Scale effects for strength, ductility, and toughness in “brittle” materials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

W.W. Gerberich ,
J. Michler ,
W.M. Mook ,
R. Ghisleni ,
F. Östlund ,
D.D. Stauffer  and
R. Ballarini
W.W. Gerberich*
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
J. Michler
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Mechanics of Materials and Nanostructures, EMPA—Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, 3602, Thun, Switzerland
W.M. Mook
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455; and Laboratory for Mechanics of Materials and Nanostructures, EMPA—Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, 3602, Thun, Switzerland
R. Ghisleni
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
F. Östlund
Affiliation:
Laboratory for Mechanics of Materials and Nanostructures, EMPA—Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research, 3602, Thun, Switzerland
D.D. Stauffer
Affiliation:
Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
R. Ballarini
Affiliation:
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455
*
a) Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: wgerb@umn.edu
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Abstract

Decreasing scales effectively increase nearly all important mechanical properties of at least some “brittle” materials below 100 nm. With an emphasis on silicon nanopillars, nanowires, and nanospheres, it is shown that strength, ductility, and toughness all increase roughly with the inverse radius of the appropriate dimension. This is shown experimentally as well as on a mechanistic basis using a proposed dislocation shielding model. Theoretically, this collects a reasonable array of semiconductors and ceramics onto the same field using fundamental physical parameters. This gives proportionality between fracture toughness and the other mechanical properties. Additionally, this leads to a fundamental concept of work per unit fracture area, which predicts the critical event for brittle fracture. In semibrittle materials such as silicon, this can occur at room temperature when the scale is sufficiently small. When the local stress associated with dislocation nucleation increases to that sufficient to break bonds, an instability occurs resulting in fracture.

Keywords

NanoindentationNanostructureSi
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 24 , Issue 3 , March 2009 , pp. 898 - 906
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2009

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