Multiscale mechanical characterization of hybrid Ti/PMMA layered materials

Abstract Metal surfaces coated with organic layers are innovative materials with high potential for many industrial applications. To overcome the limitations due to the generally poor adhesion between these two components, polymers covalently anchored onto the substrate (‘grafted’ polymers) have been proposed as adhesives interlayers. Their mechanical properties, however, strongly affect their performances and thus have to be characterized at different scales. In this paper we report the mechanical characterization of thick poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) layers grafted on titanium substrates using standard nanoindentation as well as different AFM-based techniques, namely AFM-based nanoindentation, contact resonance AFM (CR-AFM), HarmoniX™, and PeakForce quantitative nanomechanical mapping (PF-QNM™). The specific results obtained with each technique reflect the mechanical properties at different scales for these multiscale systems. Thus, these methods constitute a unique set of techniques for the complete analysis of the mechanical response of advanced materials from the macro- down to the nanoscale.