Phase Imaging of Worn Surface of TiN Coating and Interpretation by Force Spectroscopy

The paper compares topography, phase contrast and force spectroscopy in atomic force microscopy data for evaluating the microheterogeneity of surface layer. The worn surface of ion-plated TiN coating was measured using both a laboratory-built and a commercial AFM. The results of analysis revealed structural and micromechanical heterogeneity of the worn surfaces. We demonstrated that the phase image allows relatively qualitative estimation of elastic modulus of the sample surface. The tribolayer formed in the worn surface possessed much lower stiffness than the original coating. It is shown that the most stable phase imaging is provided with a stiff cantilever. In this case, phase contrast is well conditioned, first of all, by microheterogeneity of elastic properties of the investigated surfaces. In this study an attempt was also made to correlate the results of phase imaging with that of the farce spectroscopy. The joint analysis of information on the surface properties obtained by the phase imaging and quantitative data measured with the force spectroscopy methods allows a better understanding of the nature of the surface micromechanical heterogeneity.