Wear characterisation of articular cartilage surfaces at a nano-scale using atomic force microscopy

► Surface morphology of cartilage contains valuable information on wear progression. ► The study aims to characterise the cartilage surface topography with wear progression. ► Six parameters defined in ISO 25178-2 significantly change with wear progression. ► Three typical trends of the six parameters with wear progression are obtained. ► Feature parameters are firstly used for naono-characterisation of worn cartilage.