Hardness and Modulus Measurements (Oliver-Pharr)

Mechanical characterization is critical in the process and manufacture of films, including the quality of coatings in the automotive industry, as well as during process control of front-end and back-end semiconductor manufacturing.

The iMicro nanoindenter is capable of measuring hardness and modulus for a wide variety of materials, from ultra-soft gels to hard coatings. The high speed assessment of these properties enables quality control and assurance on production lines.

High Speed Material Property Maps

For many materials, including composites, the mechanical properties may vary widely from one area to the next. The iMicro provides a sample stage movement of 100mm in the X and Y axes, and 25mm in the Z axis, allowing testing of a wide range of sample heights over a large sample area. The optional NanoBlitz Topography and Tomography software can quickly generate color maps of any of the measured mechanical properties.

ISO 14577 Hardness Testing

The iMicro nanoindenter includes a pre-written ISO 14577 Test Method that measures material hardness in compliance with the ISO 14577 standard. This test method automatically measures and reports Young’s modulus, instrumented hardness, Vickers hardness and the normalized work-of-indentation.

Polymer Tan Delta, Storage and Loss Modulus

The iMicro nanoindenter is capable of measuring both tan delta and the storage and loss modulus for ultra-soft materials, including viscoelastic polymers. Storage and loss modulus and tan delta are important properties of viscoelastic polymers, whose energy is stored as elastic energy and dissipated as heat. Both of these metrics measure energy dissipation in a given material.

Quantitative Scratch and Wear Testing

The iMicro can perform scratch and wear testing on a variety of materials. Coatings and films are subjected to many processes that test the strength of these films and their adhesion to the substrate, such as chemical-mechanical polishing (CMP) and wire bonding. It is important for these materials to resist plastic deformation during these processes, and to remain intact without blistering up from the substrate. Ideally, a dielectric material will have a high hardness and elastic modulus because these parameters help define how the material will react when subjected to manufacturing processes.

High Temperature Nanoindentation Testing

Nanoindentation at elevated temperatures is critical to characterizing material performance under thermal stress, especially for quantifying failure mechanisms during thermomechanical processing. Varying the sample temperature during mechanical testing enables not only measurement of thermal-induced behavioral changes, but also quantification of transition plasticity of materials that are not easily tested on the nano-scale.