Three-dimensional molecular dynamics (MD) simulations are utilized to study the AFM-based nanoindentation process of monocrystalline copper film. The Morse potential is used to compute both the interactions between the specimen atoms

interactions between specimen atoms and indenter atoms. Nanoindentation processes are conducted to evaluate the indentation depths on the indenter’s stress and variations of system potential energy. The results shows that the plastic deformation via amorphous transformation is the mechanism of nanoindentation of monocrystalline copper film. With the increase of indentation depth

both of the variations of system potential energy and stress increase

indicating a strong size effect.