Hardness Measurement and Evaluation of Thin Film on Material Surface

AbstractA method for hardness measurement and evaluation of thin films on the material surface was proposed. Firstly, it is studied how to obtain the force-indentation response with a finite element method when the indentation is less than 100 nanometers, in which current nanoindentation experiments have not reliable accuracy. The whole hardness-indentation curve and fitted equation were obtained. At last, a formula to predict the hardness of the thin film on the material surface was derived and favorably compared with experiments