Is the second harmonic method applicable for thin films mechanical properties characterization by nanoindentation?

Abstract

The second harmonic method is a dynamic indentation technique independent of the direct indentation depth measurement. It can be used to determine near-surface mechanical properties of bulk materials more precisely than classical dynamic nanoindentation. In this paper, the second harmonic method is extended to the measurement of the mechanical properties of thin poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) layers deposited onto silicon wafers. It is shown that this new technique gives precise results at small depths (less than 100 nm), even for films with a thickness lower than 500 nm, which was not possible to achieve with the classical continuous stiffness measurement method. However, experimental and numerical results obtained both with classical nanoindentation and second harmonic methods differ at high indentation depth. Using finite element (FE) simulations and AFM measurements, it is shown that the contact depth calculation with classical models can explain this difference.