Zheng-Han Hong

Elasticity and nanomechanical response of Aspergillus niger spores using atomic force microscopy

The elasticity and nanomechanical response of Aspergillus niger spores determined using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and nanoindentation are discussed. The force-displacement curve of the spore surfaces shows that the average surface roughness of spores was approximately 33 nm and that the adhesion force ranged from 9 to 28 nN. The Youngs modulus of the A. niger spores ranged from 0.1 to 21.4 GPa and the hardness ranged from 0.01 to 0.17 GPa. The critical buckling load of the spore membrane is 290 μN.

Effect of substrate temperature and deposition rate on alloyzation for Co or Fe onto Cu(001) substrate

The mixing situation of Fe or Co atoms implanting onto Cu(001) substrate is investigated with regard to substrate temperature and deposition rate by molecular dynamics. The tight-binding-second-momentum-approach many-body potential is used to model the atomic interaction. The results indicate that the morphology of the layer is under epitaxial growth as the substrate temperature is 700 or 1000 K, while it is not epitaxial at the substrate temperature of 300 or 450 K. The quality of epitaxial film is better when the substrate temperature is increased. The intermixing at the deposited layers becomes clear as the substrate temperature increases. It also indicates that there are more Co atoms penetrating into the substrate than the Fe atoms, regardless of the substrate temperature. Hence, one could say that the interface mixing of Co and Cu atoms is better than that of Fe and Cu atoms. When the deposition rate is raised from 5 to 10 atoms/ps, there is no increase in the interface mixing at both systems except...

Molecular dynamics simulation of nanoscale mechanical behaviour of ZnO under nanoscratching and nanoindentation

Molecular dynamics is used to simulate the mechanical behaviour of zinc oxide under nanoscratching and nanoindentation. The effects of indenter speed and substrate temperature on the structure-phase formation, slip vector, radial distribution function, and residual stresses are investigated. Simulation results show that the dislocation loops nucleate and propagate, forming a body-centred tetragonal lattice structure along the slip direction due to high local stress. Furthermore, the dislocation loops nucleate and propagate due to the resolved shear stress along the 45° slip direction under nanoscratching. The average mean biaxial stress and the normal stress of the O layers are –9.35 and –4.36 GPa, respectively, and those of the Zn layers are –0.80 and –0.30 GPa, respectively. This may be attributed to the energetic O atoms, with which unstable atoms have high activation.

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Iron Clusters Deposition on Copper Substrate

A molecular dynamic method was used to simulate the film growth process of ionized cluster beam deposition for Fe clusters depositing on Cu substrate with low energy. The tight-binding many-body potential is used to simulate the interaction between atoms. It will focus on the diverse deposition process parameters including incident energy, and substrate temperature, and it will use atomic stress tensor to obtain the residual stress after the deposition process. During simulations, we will find out the critical value of the incident energy to create epitaxy growth or interfacial intermixing, observe the roughness of epitaxy growth surface to determine the quality of film, and compute the residual stress. From the simulation results, the effects of the deposition process parameters on the morphology of the deposited film could be evaluated.© 2010 ASME