Spherical nanoindentation and Vickers microhardness study of the deformation of poled BaTiO3 single crystals

In this work, Vickers microhardness and spherical nanoindentation (NI) experiments-with hemispherical radii, R, of 13.5, 5, and 1.4 mu m-were used to explore the room temperature deformation behavior of poled barium titanate (BaTiO3) single crystals with two orientations: (001) and (110). At 209 + 11 and 193 + 11 GPa, Young's moduli of the (001) and (110) surfaces, respectively, were comparable. The (001) surface deforms elastically, before a pop-in event, followed by a strain-hardening regime. The pop-in stresses are stochastic in nature and can be described by Weibull statistics. The (110) surface deforms elastically, then plastically at lower stresses, before cracks are initiated, beyond which the strain-hardening regime is almost identical to that of the (001) surface. This three-regime behavior of the (110) surface was confirmed by postindentation scanning electron microscope micrographs. This work confirms that the room temperature deformation of single crystal BaTiO3 occurs by glide on the {110} slip planes that are also the cleavage planes. Furthermore fully reversible reproducible stress/strain loops were observed and attributed to the formation and annihilation of fully reversible dislocation loops, whose threshold stresses were a function of the domain size that forms under the various indenters. The domain sizes appear to scale with R and are believed to be responsible for the NI size effect observed. (C) 2009 American Institute of Physics. [DOI: 10.1063/1.3117496]