Probing viscoelastic response of soft material surfaces at the nanoscale.

Haviland, David B; van Eysden, Cornelius Anthony; Forchheimer, Daniel; Platz, Daniel; Kassa, Hailu G; Leclère, Philippe · Soft Matter · 2016

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

We study the interaction between an AFM tip and a soft viscoelastic surface. Using a multifrequency method we measure the amplitude-dependence of the cantilever dynamic force quadratures, which clearly show the effect of finite relaxation time of the viscoelastic surface. A model is introduced which treats the tip and surface as a two-body dynamic problem with a nonlinear interaction depending on their separation. We find good agreement between simulations of this model and experimental data on polymer blend samples for a variety of materials and measurement conditions.