Wear Testing

Indentation cantilevers can also be used for wear testing using Contact AFM. Wear tests can be performed using the existing NanoScope software to wear the sample by scanning the sample in Contact Mode using indentation cantilevers. This is possible because indentation cantilevers have spring constants more than 100 times greater than standard Contact Mode imaging cantilevers (this is also the reason that indentation cantilevers cannot be used to image in Contact Mode).

The worn areas can be imaged afterward using TappingMode AFM with the same tip, often using a larger scan size in order to compare the worn to unworn regions.

Figure 1: Wear testing

Detailed instructions are available in the Wear Testing Procedure.

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