Effect of Loading Rate on Creep Properties of HgCdTe Epitaxial Films

Hemant Kumar Sharma; Rajesh Prasad; Raghvendra Sahai Saxena; Aditya Gokhale; Rajesh Kumar Sharma

doi:10.14429/dsj.70.16347

Hemant Kumar Sharma DRDO-Solid State Physics Laboratory, Delhi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4990-1814
Rajesh Prasad Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5006-8236
Raghvendra Sahai Saxena DRDO-Solid State Physics Laboratory, Delhi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6129-7771
Aditya Gokhale Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2158-424X
Rajesh Kumar Sharma Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0624-1182

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14429/dsj.70.16347

Keywords: Berkovich indenter, Creep, HgCdTe epitaxial films, Nanoindentation

Abstract

Nanoindentation creep studies were performed on Hg1-xCdxTe (x~0.29) epitaxial films using different loading rates of 0.5 mN.s-1, 1 mN.s-1, 2 mN.s-1 and 4 mN.s-1, keeping a constant peak load of 10 mN. A constant hold time of 20 sec at peak load was maintained for all experiments. The effect of loading rate on creep behaviour of material has been investigated. Creep displacement had shown increasing trend with increase of loading rates. Stress exponents were extracted using creep curve fitting with an empirical equation. A strong dependence of loading rate on stress exponent was observed. The value of stress exponent was found varying in the range 0.60-1.76, 0.96-2.23, 0.98-2,87 and 0.90-2.81 for loading rates 0.5 mN.s-1, 1 mN.s-1, 2 mN.s-1 and 4 mN.s-1, respectively. The change of stress exponent was attributed to change of creep mechanism. Hardness and elastic modulus were extracted from load-displacement curves and it was found that with the increase of the loading rate hardness increases, while elastic modulus remains constant. A correlation between variation of hardness and creep displacement has also been presented.

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