Recent experiments reported a substantial strengthening of cubic boron nitride by nanotwinning. This discovery raises fundamental questions about new atomistic mechanisms governing incipient plasticity in nanostructured strong covalent solids. Here we reveal an unusual twin-boundary dominated indentation strain-stiffening mechanism that produces a large strength enhancement at nanometer-scale twinning size where a strength reduction is normally expected due to the reverse Hall–Petch effect. First-principles calculations unveil significantly enhanced indentation shear strength in nanotwinned cubic boron nitride by bond rearrangement at the twin boundary under indentation compression and shear strains that produces especially strong stress response. This remarkable strain-stiffening mechanism offers fundamental insights for understanding the stress response of nanotwinned covalent solids under indentation.
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