A modified plastic damage model that accounts for tensile damage and compressive plasticity as well as interactions among them is adopted to simulate the indentation-induced cracking of silicon under Berkovich, cube corner, and Vickers indenters. Simulations with this model capture not only the well-known cracking geometries in indented ceramics, such as radial, median, lateral, and half penny (Vickers indenter) cracks, but also the recent experimentally discovered quarter penny cracks under Berkovich and cube corner pyramidal indenters. The quarter penny cracks are found to be formed by the coalescence of radial and median cracks for the first time in the simulation. Loads at which radial and half penny cracks are initiated in silicon are generally close to the experimental values reported in the literature, and the crack lengths on the sample surface agree well with both the current experimental measurements and analytical results by fracture mechanics.

Cu/Si composite may be a novel and high-performance material for electronic packaging if the advantages of copper and silicon components are preserved. Because of the severe diffusional reaction between copper and silicon at elevated temperature, efforts are impeded to achieve a bulk Cu/Si composite. Here, by coating a sol-gel-derived Al2O3 film on the Si particle surface, the bulk Cu/Si composites were obtained by the powder metallurgy method. In the prepared Cu/Si composite, Cu forms a continuous matrix while Si particles are homogeneously dispersed in Cu matrix. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy observation indicates that only weak interfacial reaction occurs at the Cu/Al2O3/Si interface and forms a narrow interfacial reaction zone. The thermal diffusivity of the composite at 25 °C is about 30.6 mm2 s−1, over 10 times larger than that of Cu/Si material without Al2O3 film.