Nanoscale effects on the nanomechanical properties of multifunctional materials

Nanoscale measurements of mechanical and tribological properties play an important role in many emerging fields, such as surface engineering, magnetic storage disks, biomedical coatings and microelectromechanical systems. The understanding of scale effects is of great importance, since surface to volume ratio increases with miniaturization and surface phenomena dominate. Nanoindentation and nanoscratching tests are now commonly used for the evaluation of the functionality of the film–substrate compound and it can be satisfactorily used for the multifunctional materials characterization. present study nanoscale effects on the nanomechanical properties of flexible polymeric components and multilayered amorphous carbon (a-C) films using the nanoindentation and nanoscratching techniques, are considered. In specific, (i) Creep effects in nanoscale and the dependence of the dominant friction mechanisms and surface damage mechanisms on the applied load for flexible polymeric components. Load dependent transitions in the load range 1–15 mN, in both the scratch and the friction responses are considered and discussed as well as resultant deformation in nanoscale. The friction mechanism in the low-load range was adhesion. In the intermediate and high load ranges, adhesion, elastic and plastic deformations and ploughing mechanisms contributed to the friction behavior. (ii) The hardness behavior of multilayered a-C films and the role of the intrinsic material length, namely the total (100 nm) and bilayers thickness (10–45 nm), where it was found that the reduction of the bilayer thickness results in film’s strengthening.