Determination of reduced Young's modulus of thin films using indentation test

The flat cylindrical indentation tests with different sizes of punch radius were investigated using finite element method (FEM) aimed to reveal the effect of punch size on the indentation behavior of the film/substrate system. Based on the FEM results analysis, two methods was proposed to separate film's reduced Young's modulus from a film/substrate system. The first method was based on a new weight function that quantifies film's and substrate's contributions to the overall mechanical properties of the film/substrate system in the flat cylindrical indentation test. The second method, a numerical approach, including fitting and extrapolation procedures was put forward. Both of the results from the two methods showed a reasonable agreement with the one input FE model. At last, the effect of maximum indentation depth and the surface micro-roughness of the thin film on the reduced Young's modulus of the film/substrate system were discussed. The methods proposed in the present study provide some new conceptions on evaluating other properties of thin films, e.g. creep, for which a flat-ended punch is also employed.