A Novel Testing Apparatus for Tribological Studies at the Small Scale

Abstract

A novel flexure-based biaxial compression/shear apparatus has been designed, built, and utilized to conduct tribological studies of interfaces relevant to MEMS. Aspects of our new apparatus are detailed and its capabilities are demonstrated by an investigation of two interfaces for MEMS applications. Tribological tests may be performed with normal and tangential forces in the µN to N range and relative sliding displacements in the nm to mm range. In this testing range, the new experimental apparatus represents an improvement over existing techniques for tribological studies at the small scale.