Mechanical Micro and Nano properties

The immense applications of coatings in miniaturized components and devices, together with the needs to determine the elastic and plastic properties of materials at the nanometric scale, have led to an increasing development of technologies based on nanoindentation. This technology is gaining more and more followers every day, especially specialists in the study of materials, both in academic and industrial fields and all those related to the mechanical characterization of materials and devices in small volumes.

Nanoindentation is a hardness test carried out at the nanometer length scale. Conventional methods for obtaining the hardness value of a material are based on the optical measurement of the residual trace that remains on the sample after applying a normal load to it. Said load is applied using a diamond indenter with a pyramidal geometry (Vickers or Knoop). The hardness value for said material is calculated by dividing the applied load by the area of the residual imprint.

An indentation measurement is called nanoindentation when the size of the residual trace is too small to be accurately resolved by light microscopy. This is often the case in thin film hardness measurements where very low loads (tenths of mN) must be used to avoid substrate influence. Nanoindentation measurement involves continuous recording of the indenter displacement (depth) and the applied load.