Plastic-elastic properties of hard and brittle materials such as ceramics, glasses and intermetallic phases can hardly be measured by conventional methods like tension and compression tests. While reducing the sample size down to the micro- and nanometer-scale and, if necessary, increasing the testing temperature, it is possible to deform and investigate these materials within the plastic regime. For this purpose there is a Nanoindenter at the IMM, NanoTest Platform 3 from MicroMaterials, which Prof. Korte-Kerzel brought from her former University in Erlangen in summer 2013. Now it is possible to conduct hardness measurements and compression tests on micrometer-scale samples and up to very high temperatures.

Application:

• Automated nanoindentation with different indenter shapes and materials
• Micropillar-compression
• Both possible at high temperature and high vacuum

Technical data:

• Force range up to 500mN
• Depth resolution 0,001nm
• Indentation in horizontal direction
• Tip and sample heated separately minimize thermal drift
• Max. 1000°C
• Vacuum < 10^-6mbar
• Data acquisition rate 50Hz
• Microscope with 40x magnification to localize the favored indentation area