Investigation of Material Hardness and Mesoscale Friction Properties of the Camponotus floridanus Cuticle as Determined by Atomic Force Microscopy

Although the insect exoskeleton has been well-studied anatomically, many questions remain regarding how its physical material properties manifest from the features of its design and the methods by which they may be experimentally determined. Commonly measured material properties, such as hardness or the elastic modulus, are often not well-defined for biological materials which exhibit high variability of structure, a composite nature, and intricate designs specialized to fulfill functional roles. In this study, atomic force microscopy was utilized to investigate the indentation hardness and mesoscale friction properties of the Florida carpenter ant, Camponotus floridanus. A consistent methodology to quantify the strength of the cuticle in terms of new metrics characterizing the binding forces between surface chitin fiber bundles calculated from nanoindentation data is described. Limitations and future considerations in development of this methodology are discussed within