Some properties of interest are Young and shear moduli, shear strength, and work of adhesion, and yield strength. Nanomechanics has important applications in many areas including scanned probe microscopy, contact mechanics analysis, ultra-low load indentation, microelectromechanical systems, compact discs, biological systems, and pressure sensitive adhesives. At the University of Maine, research by the group of Prof. William Unertl is aimed at understanding the dynamics of contact formation and rupture.
Many materials are viscoelastic including polymers and biological materials.
While dynamic contacts to elastic materials are reasonably well understood, contacts to viscoelastic materials are poorly understood. There is very little quantitative data and, until quite recently, there were no theoretical models including both viscoelastic response and adhesion. This has changed. Research by graduate student Manish Giri has confirmed new theoretical models by C.-Y. Hui and coworkers and by K.L. Johnson. The measurements were made on the surfaces of bulk samples of styrene-butadiene latex films, which are important in paints and paper coatings.