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Approaching the Limits of Strength: Measuring the Uniaxial Compressive Strength of Diamond at Small Scales
Jeffrey M Wheeler1,2, Rejin Raghavan1,3, Juri Wehrs1
1Laboratory for Mechanics of Materials and Nanostructures, Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology , Feuerwerkerstrasse 39, Thun CH-3602, Switzerland.
Abstract:
Diamond ⟨100⟩- and ⟨111⟩-oriented nanopillars were fabricated by focused ion beam (FIB) milling from synthetic single crystals and compressed using a larger diameter diamond punch. Uniaxial compressive failure was observed via fracture with a plateau in maximum stress of ∼0.25 TPa, the highest uniaxial strength yet measured. This corresponded to maximum shear stresses that converged toward 75 GPa or ∼ G/7 at small sizes, which are very close to the ultimate theoretical yield stress estimate of G/2π.
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