© 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Deformation mechanisms of silicon during nanoscratching

The deformation mechanisms of silicon {001} surfaces during nanoscratching were found to depend strongly on the loading conditions. Nanoscratches with increasing load were performed at 2 µm/s (low ve-locity) and 100 µm/s (high velocity). The load-penetration-distance curves acquired during the scratching process at low velocity suggests that two deformation regimes can be defined, an elasto-plastic regime at low loads and a fully plastic regime at high loads. High resolution scanning electron microscopy of the damaged location shows that the residual scratch morphologies are strongly influenced by the scratch ve-locity and the applied load. Micro-Raman spectroscopy shows that after pressure release, the deformed volume inside the nanoscratch is mainly composed of amorphous silicon and Si-XII at low scratch speeds and of amorphous silicon at high speeds. Transmission electron microscopy shows that Si nanocrystals are embedded in an amorphous matrix at low speeds, whereas at high speeds the transformed zone is com-pletely amorphous. Furthermore, the extend of the transformed zone is almost independent of the scratch-ing speed and is delimited by a dislocation rich area that extends about as deep as the contact radius into the surface. To explain the observed phase and defect distribution a contact mechanics based decompres-sion model that takes into account the load, the velocity, the materials properties and the contact radius in scratching is proposed. It shows that the decompression rate is higher at low penetration depth, which i