• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.360-364
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• 2010

Most research groups used two analysis methods (spectroscopy and nanotribology) to measure the mechanical properties of nano-materials: NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance), IR (Infrared Spectroscopy), Raman Spectroscopy as the spectroscopy method and AFM (Atomic Force MicroScope), EFM (Electrostatic Force Microscope), KFM (Kelvin Force Microscope), Nanoindenter as the nanotribological one. Among these, the nano-indentation technique particularly has been recognized as a powerful method to measure the elastic modulus and the hardness. However, this technique are prone to considerable measurement errors with pressure conditions during measurement. In this paper, we measured the change of elastic modulus and hardness of an Al single crystal with the change of load, hold, and unload time, respectively. We found that elastic modulus and hardness significantly depend on load, hold, and unload time, etc. As the indent time was shortened, the elastic modulus value decreased while the hardness value increased. In addition, we found that elastic modulus value was more sensitive to indent load, hold, and unload time than the hardness value. We speculate that measurement errors of the elastic modulus and the hardness originate from the residual stress during indenting test. From our results, the elastic modulus was more susceptible to the residual stress than the hardness. Thus, we find that the residual stress should be controlled for the minimum measurement errors during the indenting test.

• Journal of the Korean Vacuum Society
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• v.18 no.5
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• pp.372-376
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• 2009

In the modern semiconductor industry, lithography process is used to construct specific patterns. However, due to the decreasing of line width, these days, more and more researchers are interested in PMMA(Poly Methyl Methacrylate) lithography by using e-beam instead of the prior method, PR(Photoresist) lithography by using UV(Ultra-Violet). Additionally, the patterns constructed by lithography are collapsed during the process of cleansing remnants and the resistance against the breakdown of the patterns is known to be proportional to the elastic modulus of pattern-constructing materials. In this research, we measured the change of hardness and elastic modulus of PMMA film surface according to the change of time spent to soft-bake the PMMA film. During the measurement, we controlled the tip pressure from $25{\mu}N$ to $8,500{\mu}N$ having intervals that are $134.52{\mu}N$. For these measurements, we used the Triboindenter from Hysitron to gauge the hardness and elastic modulus and the tip we used was Berkovich diamond Tip.