Spherical indentation method to evaluate material properties of high-strength materials

The spherical indentation method of Lee et al. (2005, 2010) [8], [10] is extended for property evaluation of high-strength materials. By considering the finite deformation of elastic indenter due to high-strength of the indented material, regression functions are generated to map the indentation load-depth curve into the stress-strain curve. A property evaluation program is then written to produce material properties by using the indentation load-depth data from the loading/unloading process. Finally, the nano-indention tests with a spherical indenter are carried on Germanium Ge (100) and Silicon Si (100) to verify the proposed method using the experimental load-depth curves.