Mechanical properties of natural ultra-high-pressure high-temperature impact glasses at the nanoscale by PeakForce QNM

Abstract Ultra-high-pressure high-temperature (UHPHT) glass from astroblems is a very promising natural material from the point of view of the fundamental problem of the structure and properties of a substance formed under extreme PT-conditions. Such glasses consist of disordered aluminosilicate and silicate micro-sized phases with a heterogeneous structure with domain from units to tens of nanometers in size. We used AFM to evaluation the mechanical properties distribution at nanoscale in UHPHT glasses from the Kara astrobleme. The results of AFM were supplemented with optical and electron microscopy data. It is shown in the work that the nanomechanical properties of glasses measured using by PeakForce QNM generally correspond to the macroscopic properties of a bulk sample. We measured the Young's modulus for the first time for aluminosilicate and silicate phases of UHPHT glasses. AFM can be an effective tool for studying at the micro- and nanoscale mechanical properties of such rigid materials.