Nanoindentation Method To Study Slip Planes in Molecular Crystals in a Systematic Manner

作者：Jing Yuanyuan; Zhang Yan; Blendell John; Koslowski Marisol^*; Carvajal M T

来源：Crystal Growth & Design, 2011, 11(12): 5260-5267.

DOI：10.1021/cg200689a

A rotating sample method has been developed to study the slip planes of succinic acid by atomic force microscopy (AFM) nanoindentation. A nonaxisymmetric cube corner indenter was utilized to generate an inhomogeneous stress field, which selectively activates different slip systems simply by rotating the sample. The slip planes identified were repeatable and frequently observed for different indentations of the single crystals using four sample rotations. By applying this rotating sample method to both (001) and (010) crystal faces, the repeatedly observed major slip planes were identified as (010) and (111) planes; these agree with the theoretical prediction. Many higher index operative slip planes were identified that were not reported previously. The rotating sample method presented herein is pragmatic and suggests that the anisotropic slip properties of single pharmaceutical crystals can be studied in a systematic manner.

• 出版日期2011-12