Investigation of the fracture of very thin amorphous alumina film during spherical nanoindentation

Thin amorphous alumina layers (10 to 40nm thick) are processed on sputtered aluminum thin film (500nm) by atomic layer deposition (ALD) at low temperature (85°C). Global methodology combining quantitative experimental observations of fracture and numerical modeling is proposed to obtain the fracture strength of ALD thin film on Al layer. First, mechanical properties of the multilayer specimen are characterized by Berkovich nanoindentation, then …