Nanoindentation mechanical studies of bulk AlN single crystals with different orientations

This study utilized nanoindentation to perform nano-mechanical tests on freestanding aluminum nitride (AlN) single crystal substrates with (0002), (10–10), and (11–20) orientations prepared by the physical vapor transport (PVT) method with varying indentation depths. The results indicate that the c -plane exhibits greater hardness and smaller Young’s modulus compared to other orientations. Moreover, the mechanical properties of AlN with different orientations demonstrate consistency with the indentation size effect, showing a decrease in both hardness and Young’s modulus with increasing indentation depth. Surface morphology of the indentations was observed using SEM, revealing that at high loads, no obvious cracks were found in the c -plane indentation except for slight deformation, while the m -plane and a -plane indentations produced cracks extending along the a - and m -directions, respectively. Cathodoluminescence (CL) results demonstrated that dislocations and structural defects generated by the indentation produced the luminescence quenching. Notably, the inverted triangular dislocation slip region was clearly observed in the panchromatic CL images of c -plane indentation. The anisotropy of the phonon peaks at different crystal planes and the nature of the local stress at the indentation were further analyzed using Raman spectroscopy.