Deformation Characteristics in Micromachining of Single Crystal 6H-SiC: Insight into Slip Systems Activation

Abstract

Silicon carbide (SiC) is ideally suitable as a sensor material in harsh environments. Despite the brittleness in the macroscopic scale, plasticity in SiC is observed at small component length-scales. Previous nanoindentation based study combining experiment and numerical approaches of single-crystal 6H-SiC has shown that slip activation is rather complex, and that non-basal slip could potentially dominate the plastic deformation behaviour. In this study, we investigated the local deformation response evolution of shear strain directly under and in the vicinity of the indenter tip. The results show the pyramidal slip families contribute significantly to the deformation process.

Dislocation Analysis of 3C-SiC Nanoindentation with Different Crystal Plane Groups Based on Molecular Dynamics Simulation

“…The modulus and hardness increase with increasing indentation depth in the initial stage, but finally reach a stable value equivalent to that of single crystal 6 h SiC. Pang et al [19] explored the evolution of the local deformation response of direct and nearby shear strains at the indenter tip and found that the cone slip family contributes greatly to the deformation process. Leide et al [20] studied indentation deformation using high-resolution electron backscatter diffraction and Raman spectroscopy.…”