Herein, nanocrystalline NbMoTaW and (NbMoTaW)N thin films were prepared via magnetron sputtering and investigated using nanoindentation creep tests at various indentation loads (P). The hardness (H) of films increases with P, exhibiting an abnormal indentation size effect (ISE). At the same time, with decreasing indentation depth (h), the creep rate and the creep rate sensitivity (m) both increase. Under a critical h (hc) for each film, m sharply increases. The diffusion between the indenter/film interface dominates the creep mechanism at h lower than hc, whereas the dislocation–grain boundary interaction dominates the creep deformation at h higher than hc. The coble creep and lattice diffusion were both excluded as the main deformation mechanism. The escape of screw dislocations to the surface leads to the softening of the film, whereas the pile-up of screw dislocations leads to hardening, explaining the abnormal ISE on H. The effect of residual stress, grain boundary structures, substrate, and impurities are also discussed.
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