Evaluation of elastic modulus and hardness of thin films by nanoindentation

Abstract

Simple equations are proposed for determining elastic modulus and hardness properties of thin films on substrates from nanoindentation experiments. An empirical formulation relates the modulus E and hardness H of the film/substrate bilayer to corresponding material properties of the constituent materials via a power-law relation. Geometrical dependence of E and H is wholly contained in the power-law exponents, expressed here as sigmoidal functions of indenter penetration relative to film thickness. The formulation may be inverted to enable deconvolution of film properties from data on the film/substrate bilayers. Berkovich nanoindentation data for dense oxide and nitride films on silicon substrates are used to validate the equations and to demonstrate the film property deconvolution. Additional data for less dense nitride films are used to illustrate the extent to which film properties may depend on the method of fabrication.

Determination of work of adhesion of biological cell under AFM bead indentation

“…The maximum indentation depth of cell is approximately 0.7μm. Thus, the substrate effect is negligible since the indentation is smaller than 10% of the sample thickness (ISO14577-4; Dimitriadis et al, 2002;Jung et al, 2004).…”

Determination of Structural, Mechanical and Corrosion Properties of Titanium Alloy Covered by Thin Films Based on Graphene and Silicon Nitride

“…A number of measurements were carried out for various depths of nanoindentation (from 80 nm to 700 nm). In order to measure the "film-only" properties and minimize the impact of the substrate, a method of nanoindentation measurements approximation was implemented [32].…”

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“…Indicated is the amount of ring opening of the structure -for the THF based sols there is 0% and 10% ring opening but for ethanol based sols there is 10% and 60% ring opening. Solid lines are fits to the data using the method in ref (Jung et al, 2004). Figure 16.…”