Journals Proceedings

Abstract

The inclusion of nanoparticles in a material is a common strategy to improve mechanical properties such as Young’s modulus or hardness. In most cases, the degree of improvement depends on the distribution and size of nanoparticles as well as the process condition. In order to investigate the effects of nanoparticles on the mechanical properties of a nanoparticles doped film, a nanoindentation finite element analysis is carried out. In this study, different concentration, size, and shape (spherical, elliptical) of nanoparticles were doped in diamond-like carbon (DLC) film on a silicon substrate and the mechanical property (hardness) is calculated based on a finite element analysis. The results indicate that for a given concentration, DLC doped with larger but less in quantites spherical nanoparticles has higher hardness than that in smaller but more dense counterpart. Meanwhile, large concentration of nanoparticle leads to higher hardness due to more population of nanoparticles. The orientation of elliptical nanoparticle also affects the hardness which means for nonspherical nanoparticle, the orientation is another factor that influences the hardness. The hardness enhancement mechanism for concentration, size and orientation is interpreted by the residual stress as well as projection area for particle inclusion which can be extended to other kind of inclusion.