Determination of Elastic and Creep Properties of Thin-film Systems from Indentation Experiments

The distortion regions near grain boundaries in alpha-Fe-C solid solution were studied by use of internal friction method. It was found that the total thickness of these regions is quite large though the thickness of real grain boundaries is usually very thin. It was also found that the smaller the grain size, the thicker the total distortion region. A model for the structure of distortion regions near grain boundaries is proposed. Their effects on nanocrystalline materials are discussed.