Indentation response of single-crystal GaAs in the nano-, micro-, and macroregime

Fabrication, handling and processing of wafers of intrinsically brittle and anisotropic single-crystalline GaAs require a high level of control of the material’s response to different loading conditions. The present work is focused on the response to hardness indentation. A short overview on the behaviour of (100) GaAs wafers in several doping conditions over a wide range of indentation loads from nano-indentation up to macro-indentation including sharp and blunt indenters is given. Special attention is paid to the pop-in effect in depth-sensing nano-indentation, to the anisotropy of indentation-induced radial crack formation and to the material’s crack resistance obtained from the indentation fracture mechanics approach. We have observed that, under certain conditions, the frequency of formation of radial cracks is essentially different for the two in-plane <110> directions. This observation is attributed to the occurrence of two different kinds of dislocations and to the lack of inversion symmetry. The effect turns out to be closely related to a left-right asymmetry in the material removal caused by wire sawing. This insight has paved the way to the optimization of the process of wire sawing of GaAs single crystals.