Research on the relationship between indenter tip radius and hardness with a self-designed nanohardness test device

Nanoindentation device has the ability to make the load-displacement measurement with sub-nanometer indentation depth sensitivity, and the nanohardness of the material can be achieved by the load-displacement curve. Aiming at the influence law of indenter tip radius to indentation hardness, testing on the hardness of single-crystal silicon were carried out with the new self-designed nanohardness test device based on nanoindentation technique. Two kinds of Berkovich indenter with radius 40nm and 60nm separately were used in this experiment. According to the load-depth curve, the hardness of single-crystal silicon was achieved by Oliver-Pharr method. Experimental results are presented which show that indenter tip radius do influence the hardness, the hardness value increases and the indentation size effect (ISE) becomes obvious with the increasing of tip radius under same indentation depth.