Nanomechanical property screening of combinatorial thin-film libraries by nanoindentation

Mechanical properties rank high on the list of selection criteria for several material classes currently under investigation by combinatorial materials science specialists. The material system being explored is often in the form of a combinatorial thin-film library deposited onto a wafer substrate. Given this particular format, the likely method of choice for mechanical property determination is nanoindentation, a quantitative small-volume technique now commonplace in the thin-film segment of traditional materials science. While the advent of nanoindentation applied to combinatorial materials science is recent, evidence of a growing awareness among researchers employing combinatorial methodologies include the first publication, two published patent applications and a number of conference presentations over the past year citing nanoindentation as the technique selected for high-throughput screening of mechanical properties such as elastic modulus and indentation hardness. The intent of this paper is to synopsize the current status of nanoindentation in terms of nanomechanical property screening of combinatorial thin-film libraries.