No Arabic abstract
Size dependent hardness has long been reported in nanosized indentations, however the corresponding explanation is still in exploration. In this paper, we examine the influence of surface energy on the hardness of materials under spherical indentation. To evaluate the ability of materials to resist indentation, a yield hardness is defined here as the contact pressure at the inception of material yield. It is found that this defined hardness is an intrinsic material property depending only on the yield strength and Poisson ratio in conventional continuum mechanics. Then, the impact of surface energy on the yield hardness is analyzed through finite element simulations. By using the dimensional analysis, the dependences of the yield hardness and critical indent depth at yield initiation on surface energy have been achieved. When the yield strength is comparable to the ratio of surface energy density to indenter radius, surface energy will alter the yield hardness and the critical indent depth. As the size of indenter decreases to nanoscale, both the yield hardness and the indent depth will increase significantly. This study provides a possible clarification to the size dependence of hardness and a potential approach to measure the yield strength and surface energy of solids through nanosized indentations.
To enable an exploration of the initiation mechanism of nanosecond laser damage on a potassium dihydrogen phosphate (KDP) surface, a defect-assisted energy deposition model is developed that involves light intensity enhancement and a sub-band gap energy level structure. The simulations provide an explanation on why the laser-induced damage threshold (LIDT) of the KDP crystal is two orders of magnitude lower than the theoretical value. The model is verified by use of the transient images that appear during the laser damage. In addition, the dimensions of the dangerous surface defects that are the most sensitive to the laser damage are proposed. This work enables clarification on the initial energy deposition (IED) and initiation mechanism of the nanosecond laser damage caused by the KDP surface defects on micro-nano scale. It is helpful in understanding the laser-matter interactions and to improve the processing technique for high quality optical components.
We apply the Lifshitz theory of dispersion forces to find a contribution to the free energy of peptide films which is caused by the zero-point and thermal fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. For this purpose, using available information about the imaginary parts of dielectric permittivity of peptides, the analytic representation for permittivity of typical peptide along the imaginary frequency axis is devised. Numerical computations of the fluctuation-induced free energy are performed at room temperature for the freestanding peptide films, containing different fractions of water, and for similar films deposited on dielectric (SiO$_2$) and metal (Au) substrates. It is shown that the free energy of a freestanding peptide film is negative and, thus, contributes to its stability. The magnitude of the free energy increases with increasing fraction of water and decreases with increasing thickness of a film. For peptide films deposited on a dielectric substrate the free energy is nonmonotonous. It is negative for thicker than 100 nm films, reaches the maximum value at some film thickness, but vanishes and changes its sign for thinner than 100 nm films. The fluctuation-induced free energy of peptide films deposited on metallic substrate is found to be positive which makes films less stable. In all three cases, simple analytic expressions for the free energy of sufficiently thick films are found. The obtained results may be useful to attain film stability in the next generation of organic microdevices with further shrinked dimensions.
The microstructure, mechanical properties and thermal stability of AlTiN and AlTiBN coatings grown by reactive high-power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) have been analyzed as a function of Al/(Al+Ti) ratio, x, between 0.5 and 0.8. The coatings were predominantly formed by a face-centered cubic Ti(Al)N crystalline phase, both with and without B, even for x ratios as high as 0.6, which is higher than the ratio typically encountered for AlTiN coatings deposited by reactive magnetron sputtering. B doping, in combination with the highly energetic deposition conditions offered by HiPIMS, results in the suppression of the columnar grain morphology typically encountered in AlTiN coatings. On the contrary, the AlTiBN coatings grown by HiPIMS present a dense nanocomposite type microstructure, formed by nanocrystalline Ti(Al)N domains and amorphous regions composed of Ti(Al)B2 and BN. As a result, high-Al content (x>0.6) AlTiBN coatings grown by HiPIMS offer higher hardness, elasticity and fracture toughness than AlTiN coatings. Moreover, the thermal stability and the hot hardness are substantially enhanced, delaying the onset of formation of the detrimental hexagonal AlN phase from 850 C in the case of AlTiN, to 1000 C in the case of AlTiBN.
The rising need for hybrid physical platforms has triggered a renewed interest for the development of agile radio-frequency phononic circuits with complex functionalities. The combination of travelling waves with resonant mechanical elements appears as an appealing means of harnessing elastic vibration. In this work, we demonstrate that this combination can be further enriched by the occurrence of elastic non-linearities induced travelling surface acoustic waves (SAW) interacting with a pair of otherwise linear micron-scale mechanical resonators. Reducing the resonator gap distance and increasing the SAW amplitude results in a frequency softening of the resonator pair response that lies outside the usual picture of geometrical Duffing non-linearities. The dynamics of the SAW excitation scheme allows further control of the resonator motion, notably leading to circular polarization states. These results paves the way towards versatile high-frequency phononic-MEMS/NEMS circuits fitting both classical and quantum technologies.
Autler-Townes Splitting (ATS) and Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) are similar phenomena but distinct in nature. They have been widely discussed and distinguished by employing the Akaike information criterion (AIC). However, such work is lacking in acoustic system. In this work, the interaction of Love waves with two-line pillared meta-surface is numerically investigated by Finite Element Method. Acoustic analogue of ATS, Fabry-Perot resonance and cavity modes are first demonstrated in two lines of identical pillars by varying the distance between the pillar lines. By detuning the radius of one line of pillars, Fabry-Perot resonance along with two different pillar resonances give rise to the acoustic analogue of EIT (AIT) when the distance between the pillar lines is a multiple of half wavelength. ATS and AIT formula models are used to fit the transmission spectra, showing good agreements with numerical results. The quality of the fit models is quantitatively evaluated by resorting to the AIC. We show that theoretical and analytical discrimination between ATS and AIT are methodologically complementary. These results should have important consequences for potential acoustic applications such as wave control, designing of meta-materials and bio-sensors.