| Abstract: | We studied nanomechanical properties for a series of ultrathin films of elastomeric materials from polyisoprene rubbers and tri‐block styrene‐butadiene‐styrene copolymer, SEBS. As we observed, the Hertzian approximation for elastic mechanical deformation of double layer films can be used for the analysis of force‐distance data at modest indentation depths and film thickness higher than 3 nm. For thinner films, the influence of solid substrate becomes very significant. On the other hand, the applicability of the Hertzian approximation is limited by the rate dependent elastomeric deformation. We demonstrated that Johnson modification of the contact mechanics model that includes a viscoelastic contribution could be utilized to obtain reasonable fitting of loading data for elastomeric materials. |
