Effect of water on the mechanical response of monocrystalline silicon to repeated micro-indentation

摘要

This paper studies the effect of water on the mechanical response of mono-crystalline silicon to repeated micro-indentations with a spherical indenter. It shows that in air repeated indentations generated consequent phase transformations but after a few cycles the transformed material behaved elastically and its properties became stable. However, when the same indentations were conducted in water, the property stabilization process of the transformed material was significantly slowed down.