Nano-scratch and wear testing
The NanoTest nano-scratch/nano-wear module has been developed at Micro Materials over a number of years. The patented technology in use by this module has a number of advantages for the study of advanced coatings, plus other applications.
Key Features of the NanoTest nano-scratch / nano-wear module:
- Results are highly reproducible, due to a robust yet highly sensitive loading head
- Multi-pass wear scratches with the NanoTest are extremely sensitive to subtle differences in adhesion
- Multi-pass wear for sliding/abrasive wear rates may be investigated
- Multi-scan procedure (with residual scan) allows identification of failure mechanisms - and the role of stress in particular - in great detail
- The small probes used, together with very low scan rates and scan loads, makes the NanoTest nano-scratch/ nanowear extremely sensitive to variations across surfaces.
- The module is fully automated, allowing multiple experiments on multiple samples in a single automated schedule.
- Results are much less sensitive to scan parameters than macro-scale scratch testing.
Further Reading
Nano-scratch and wear application note (287k PDF)
Nanotribological and nanomechanical properties of 5-80 nm tetrahedral amorphous carbon films on silicon. BD Beake, SP Lau, Diamond and Related Materials, 2005 (14) 1535-1542
Influence of experimental factors and film thickness on the measured critical load in the nano-scratch test. BD Beake, AA Ogwu,T Wagner, Materials Science and Engineering A, 2006 (423) 70-73
