Nanoindentation

A number of indentation hardness tests are used on tiny volumes during nanoindentation, also known as instrumented indentation testing[1]. Perhaps the most used method for evaluating a material's mechanical characteristics is indentation. The mid-1970s saw the development of the nanoindentation technology, which was used to gauge the hardness of tiny amounts of material. A hard point with known mechanical characteristics (sometimes made of an extremely hard material like diamond) is pushed into a sample whose mechanical properties are unknown in a typical indentation test (macro or micro indentation). As the indenter tip burrows further into the specimen, the weight applied to it rises until it quickly reaches a user-defined value. The burden may now be kept steady for a while or eliminated. The indentation area in nanoindentation may only be a few square micrometres or even nanometers due to the utilisation of minuscule loads and tip sizes. As a result, it is difficult to locate the contact region while assessing the hardness. The indentation may be imaged using atomic force microscopy or scanning electron microscopy techniques, although these methods can be time-consuming. Instead, an indenter with a well-known geometry is used; typically, this is a Berkovich tip, which has a three-sided pyramid shape. The area of the indent is calculated using the known geometry of the indentation tip after a record of the depth of penetration is made during the instrumented indentation procedure.