| The main objective of this thesis was to develop elevated temperature nanoindentation as a high throughput method to obtain activation parameters that normally require large experimental trials and long durations of measurement. This is a significant departure from majority of studies in this field that are confined mostly to room temperature measurements and report only modulus and hardness data. Since the extension of nanoindentation to elevated temperatures is still in developmental stage, a major portion of this thesis deals with the technical and data analysis issues associated with obtaining reliable nanoscale measurements at high temperatures. Based on extensive experimentation utilizing a tip heated configuration, operational refinements have been suggested and a robust experimental protocol has been established to reduce thermal drift effects. The issue of noise in nanoindentation data is addressed using statistical learning techniques for the first time. Additionally, extraction of activation parameters from nanoindentation data, which are normally obtained from bulk measurements, is demonstrated. |
