Molecular dynamics simulation of nanoscale abrasive wear of polycrystalline silicon

Pengzhe Zhu*, Rui Li, Hanyu Gong

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this work, molecular dynamics simulations of the nanoscratching of polycrystalline and singlecrystalline silicon substrates using a single-crystal diamond tool are conducted to investigate the grain size effect on the nanoscale wear process of polycrystalline silicon. We find that for a constant indentation depth, both the average normal force and friction force are much larger for single-crystalline silicon compared to polycrystalline silicon. It is also found that, for the polycrystalline substrates, both the average normal force and friction force increase with increasing grain size. However, the friction coefficient decreases with increasing grain size, and is the smallest for single-crystalline silicon. We also find that the quantity of wear atoms increases nonlinearly with the average normal load, inconsistent with Archard’s law. The quantity of wear atoms is smaller for polycrystalline substrates with a larger average grain size. The grain size effect in the nanoscale wear can be attributed to the fact that grain boundaries contribute to the plastic deformation of polycrystalline silicon.

Original languageEnglish
Article number463
JournalCrystals
Volume8
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Molecular dynamics
  • Nanoscale wear
  • Polycrystalline silicon

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