Surface effects on Young’s modulus and hardness of fused silica by nanoindentation study

The surface Young’s modulus (E) and hardness (H) of fused silica samples have been studied by nanoindentation. Two factors strongly affect the results of E and H. One factor is the polishing quality of the fused silica surface. Poor polishing quality produces much smaller E and H than the literature values for bulk fused silica. The second factor is surface flatness. Even for a well-polished silica surface, an “arch bridge effect” may hinder the measurements of the true values of E and H. A correction procedure is proposed to eliminate this effect, and the corrected results show substantial improvements.