Plasticity resulted from phase transformation for monolayer molybdenum disulfide film during nanoindentation simulations

Molecular dynamics simulations on nanoindentation of circular monolayer molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) film are carried out to elucidate the deformation and failure mechanisms. Typical force–deflection curves are obtained, and in-plane stiffness of MoS2 is extracted according to a continuum mechanics model. The measured in-plane stiffness of monolayer MoS2 is about 182 ± 14 N m−1, corresponding to an effective Young's modulus of 280 ± 21 GPa. More...