AFM-based Nanoscale DMA

AFM-based Nanoscale DMA

The development of heterogeneous materials like polymer composites, blends and multilayers are of considerable importance in the chemicals industry. Bulk viscoelastic measurements are routine in establishing structure-property relationship for these materials. However, materials R&D often produces composites that contain nano-sized portions that do not exist in the bulk or that have properties influenced by the proximity of other components. A quantitative means of measuring the viscoelastic properties of such mterials at the nanoscale has been a long-standing and elusive goal for atomic force microscopy (AFM). While AFM has the sensitivity and resolution needed to do the measurement, traditional AFM-based approaches are hampered by difficult calibration, poorly defined measurement frequency, and inadequate modeling of the tip-sample interation.

Now, with the development of the AFM-nDMA mode from Bruker, these pitfalls can be avoided and the frequency and temperature depedence of viscoelastic properties in rheologically relevant ranges can be directly measured with 10nm spatial resolution. Read more or download the application note.