Tribological characterization of chemical vapor deposited Co and Co3O4 thin films for sensing reliability in engineering applications

In the present study, nanoindentation and nanoscratch techniques are applied in order to obtain the nanomechanical properties (hardness, H, and elastic modulus, E) of chemical vapor deposited Co and Co3O4 thin films (promising candidates for magnetic sensing and data storage applications) and evaluate the functionality of the thin film-substrate system. A wear analysis is also performed based on the H/E ratio.