Measuring Nanoscale Viscoelastic Properties with AFM-Based nano-DMA

This webinar introduces the polymer rheological measurement capabilities of the new AFM-nDMA mode, which for the first time provides viscoelastic measurements that match bulk dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) over the entire frequency range.

Since the mechanical properties of polymers are time dependent, full understanding requires measurements over a range of frequencies and temperatures. Where DMA is well suited for measurements on bulk samples, it is less adept at characterizing microscopic domains within heterogeneous polymer material. Established AFM methods, either provide property maps at discrete frequencies orders of magnitude higher than bulk measurements (e.g., TappingMode and contact resonance), making comparisons difficult, or struggle with such intrinsic mechanical properties as loss tangent and storage modulus (e.g., force spectroscopy and PeakForce Tapping).

AFM-nDMA mode overcomes these hurdles, providing viscoelastic results that can be directly compared with bulk DMA, while also allowing high-resolution microstructure measurements of heterogeneous samples. The webinar discusses a series of homogeneous polymer and composite examples.