Accurate extraction of the mechanical properties of thin films by nanoindentation for the design of reliable MEMS

Traditional procedures for the extraction of mechanical properties of thin films by nanoindentation measurements have shown problems in terms of accuracy and in the ability to support sophisticated constitutive models. In this paper, an inverse modeling procedure based on finite element analysis is presented to solve these limitations. Finite element simulation is used to predict the relationships between the indentation load and depth. The developed approach is applied to extract the viscoplastic properties of aluminum single grain, the viscoelastic properties of acrylic resin films, and the residual strain in stainless steel.