Modern strategies in classical fields of nanoindentation: Semiconductors, ceramics, and thin films

Over the past three decades, nanoindentation has continuously evolved and transformed the field of materials mechanical testing. Once highlighted by the groundbreaking Oliver-Pharr method, the utility of nanoindentation has transcended far beyond modulus and hardness measurements. Today, with increasing challenges in developing advanced energy generation and electronics technologies, we face a growing demand for accelerated materials discovery and efficient assessment of mechanical properties that are coupled with modern machine learning-assisted approaches, most of which require robust experimental validation and verification. To this end, nanoindentation finds its unique strength, owing to its small-volume requirement, of fast-probing and providing a mechanistic understanding of various materials. As such, this technique meets the demand for rapid materials assessment, including semiconductors, ceramics, and thin films, which are integral to next-generation energy-efficient and high-power electronic devices. Here, we highlight modern nanoindentation strategies using novel experimental protocols outlined by the use of nanoindentation for characterizing functional structures, dislocation engineering, high-speed nanoindentation mapping, and accelerating materials discovery via thin-film libraries. We demonstrate that nanoindentation can be a powerful tool for probing the fundamental mechanisms of elasticity, plasticity, and fracture over a wide range of microstructures, offering versatile opportunities for the development and transition of functional materials.