Nanoindentation unidirectional sliding and lateral force microscopy: Evaluation of experimental techniques to measure friction at the nanoscale

• Published in: AIP advances Vol. 8; no. 12; pp. 125013 - 125013-10
• Main Authors: Echeverrigaray, F. G., Sales de Mello, S. R., Boeira, C. D., Leidens, L. M., Maia da Costa, M. E. H., Freire, F. L., Alvarez, F., Michels, A. F., Figueroa, C. A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Melville American Institute of Physics 01-12-2018; AIP Publishing LLC
• Subjects: Comparative studies; Correlation analysis; Damping; Friction; Microscopy; Nanoindentation; Sliding; Thin films
• ISSN: 2158-3226; 2158-3226
• DOI: 10.1063/1.5047801

Lateral force microscopy (LFM) is an established technique to assess friction forces at the nanoscale. Nanoindentation followed by unidirectional sliding (NUS) is also used to evaluate friction forces at the micro/nanoscale. However, comparative studies between NUS and LFM evaluating the experimental results at different scales are still missing. In this work, a-C:D/H and a-C:H thin films with different [D]/[C] and [H]/[C] contents were used to analyze the friction forces by NUS and LFM. The results show that the friction behavior assessed by these two techniques in different scales is the same. The correlation between friction forces measured by NUS and LFM depends mainly on a contact area factor that makes invariant the friction force from nanoscale to microscale. Such behavior suggests a similar damping mechanism, probably phonon-coupling phenomena, for the friction force origin.