Elastic properties of thin h-BN films investigated by Brillouin light scattering

Hexagonal BN films have been deposited by rf-magnetron sputtering with simultaneous ion plating. The elastic properties of the films grown on silicon substrates under identical coating conditions have been de-termined by Brillouin light scattering from thermally excited surface phonons. Four of the five independent elastic constants of the deposited material are found to be c11 = 65 GPa, c13 = 7 GPa, c33 = 92 GPa and c44 = 53 GPa exhibiting an elastic anisotropy c11/c33 of 0.7. The Young's modulus determined with load indenta-tion is distinctly larger than the corresponding value taken from Brillouin light scattering. This discrepancy is attributed to the specific morphology of the material with nanocrystallites embedded in an amorphous matrix.