[Spm] RE: Spm Digest, Vol 68, Issue 2, Topic 1: measure of Hardness: A or h?

[Salerno Marco]

Don,

>When measuring hardness by nanoindentation, 
>one measures the size of the indent mark.  
>Does it matter whether the size is measured 
>as area or depth?  
>Is it better to measure area or depth?

There wouldn't be a real difference
if one exactly knows what the shape of the indenter is,
and thus knows the socalled Diamond Area Function (DAF),
that is the area A as a function of depth h.
However, this is never really the case !
That's exactly the reason why people 
measure the indenter tip shape with the AFM, previously.
Please send me an email for references on this topic,
if you're interested.

Bye,
Marco.