Unveiling the Deformation Behaviors of Luvo4 Single Crystal by Using Nanoindentation and Finite Element Analysis

Abstract

The present article reports the mechanical responses exhibited in single crystalline LuVO4 (scLVO) obtained experimentally by nanoindentation and theoretically by finite element method (FEM). The experimental results evidently showed the characteristic features of randomly distributed multiple “pop-in” events in the loading segment of the load-displacement curves, which are often attributed to manifestations of the nucleation and/or propagation of dislocations. Based on the scenario, an energetic estimation on the number of nanoindentation-induced dislocation loop associated with first “pop-in” is discussed. The magnitudes of the hardness and the Young’s modulus for scLVO obtained by the continuous contact stiffness measurements are 11.2±0.3 GPa and 190.8±2.6 GPa, respectively. Moreover, FEM simulations successfully replicate most of the essential features of the nanoindentation experiments and the derived shear stresses being deviated from the experimental results only by about 4.2%.

Keywords: LuVO4 single crystal, Nanoindentation, Pop-in, Finite Element Method