COMPRESSION TESTING BY NANOMANIPULATION IN ENVIRONMENTAL SCANNING ELECTRON MICROSCOPE

Compression testing by nanomanipulation in environmental scanning electron microscope has been reported. Materials used for industrial applications should have desirable physical properties, including size, surface charge, surface area, porosity, and mechanical strength. Compression testing by micro manipulation has been used extensively to measure the response of biological and non-biological materials to deformation. The glass slide and the cantilever were coated with conductive material (gold) for 3 min using a standard preparation protocol to enhance the quality of their images but the particles were not, since coating of the particles may alter their mechanical properties. The results obtained showed that this technique can be used to measure not only the force imposed on single microparticles less than 13 μm in diameter, but also their 3-dimensional deformation, including their central lateral and contact diameters and change in volume during compression.