Study of stress‐hardening and fatigue of polymer coatings in marring with a scanning probe microscope

We have used a scanning probe microscope with a custom‐made diamond tip to mar a crosslinked polymeric coating surface with an increasing number of scrapings at a fixed normal force in the same channel. The depth of ditches was measured, and the morphology at the bottom of the ditches was examined after each scraping. It provides a direct experimental evidence for stress‐hardening and surface fatigue of a polymeric coating on the sub‐micron scale when it undergoes marring.