Nanomechanical characteristics of annealed Si/SiGe superlattices

► We evaluated the nanomechanical damage of annealed Si/SiGe strained-layer superlattices. ► The measured values of hardness and elastic moduli of the SLSs films were increased respectively. ► Slight oscillations and discontinuous phenomena in each hardness curve may have been due to the relaxed Si/SiGe structure.