Atomic Force Acoustic Microscopy of nanostructured SiC coatings

Nanostructured silicon carbide coatings were synthesized on Si(111) using Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique in Ultra High Vacuum (UHV). The PLD grown coatings possessing a nanocomposite architecture were characterized by Atomic Force Acoustic Microscopy (AFAM). The contact stiffness of such a coating was quantitatively evaluated from force-distance curves after due calibration with PZT and elemental Si. AFAM based metrology was used to map contact stiffness. Elastic constant for nanosturctured SiC coating of 150 nm thickness is found to be about 30 x 1010 N/m2. Contrast inversion procedure could reproducibly indicate hard and soft zones on the specimens. The latter showed stiffer zones due to pinning by nano-sized SiC particles. Copyright © 2009 American Scientific Publishers.