Mechanical surface characterization of smartphone displays

Relevant for: Smartphone, Display, Electronics, MCT3, NST3, RST3, UNHT3, UNHT3 Bio

Smartphones are used many times a day and while being manipulated they are in contact with
many types of objects. To avoid damage, a smartphone has to be very scratch resistant. This
application report shows how Anton Paar instruments can contribute to the development of
high-quality touchscreens.

also of the smartphone casing. Various methods are

used to quantify the scratch resistance – the two most
suitable ones are the scratch test technique and
nanoindentation. This application report will show the
use of these two methods for characterization of
scratch resistance and hardness of smartphone
displays.

1.1 Smartphone display

Figure 1: Structure of OLED smartphone display.
Smartphone display is one of the most mechanically
sensitive components of a smartphone. Since the
screen is used for both visualization and for operating
the phone by tactile input, it must fulfill many
requirements and it is therefore composed of several
parts (see Figure 2).

1 Introduction
Smartphones are mobile phones with many advanced
functions in addition to basic calling and sending text
messages. Smartphones are our everyday tools with
many applications: internet browsing, photography,
health monitoring, online shopping, remote control of
devices, etc. Even though the first smartphone had
been designed back in 1992, the major revolution
happened in 2007 when the phone got a large touch
screen. This revolutionized the phone industry: the
small keypad was replaced by touch sensitive screen.
The smartphone displays have been considerably Figure 2: Schematics of a smartphone touchscreen.
improved over the years. Today’s phones offer high
definition resolution and excellent image quality. The Typical smartphone display is generally composed of
number of smartphones continues to grow and there the following layers (Figure 2):
were around 6.3 billion smartphone users worldwide in
2021 (1). The users spend a considerable amount of ▪ A liquid-crystal display (LCD): arrays of liquid
time with their mobile phone, from a few minutes to crystal materials sandwiched between two
several hours each day, and most of them keep their sheets of glass and polarizers, and illuminated
phone at hand all the time. by a backlight.
Smartphones must be very resistant to mechanical ▪ A touch panel: made of glass and a polymeric
stresses that occur during their use. They can be film both covered by a thin transparent layer
subjected to shocks or scratching every time users of a conductive material (for example indium
manipulate them, for example when taking the phone tin oxide, ITO).
out of a pocket or a bag or putting on a table. The
▪ Protective cover glass: most of the time some
smartphone manufacturers are struggling to achieve
type of hardened glass such as Gorilla glass.
the best scratch resistance of the display, its frame and

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 ▪ All these components are held together using
an optically clear adhesive (OCA) film.
Display, particularly the cover glass, must have suitable
mechanical properties in order to guarantee its perfect Lc1
function. The most important is hardness and scratch
resistance of the glass and its surface treatments.
Characterization of mechanical properties of the glass
is therefore very important. The Anton Paar
nanoindenters and scratch testers are excellent tools
for investigation of both hardness of the cover glass as
well as of its scratch resistance.

1.2 Nanoindentation and scratch test

Nanoindentation is a method which allows Figure 3: Typical failure observed in optical microscope after the
measurements of hardness, elastic modulus, creep scratch.
and adhesion of thin films and small volumes of
The microscope observation of the failure was
material. A sharp diamond pyramid indenter is pressed
confirmed by a sudden change of penetration depth
with a pre-defined load into the surface of the tested
(Pd), residual depth (Rd) and coefficient of friction
material and the penetration depth is recorded.
(CoF) at the critical load value (Lc1). This is an
Hardness, elastic modulus and other properties are
important information about the resistance of the
obtained from the load-displacement curve using the
alumina layer to the scratching: the higher the critical
ISO 14577 standard.
load (Lc), the better the scratch resistance.
Scratch test is a method that allows characterization of
coating adhesion and scratch resistance. A scratch test
is typically performed using a spherical diamond
indenter which ‘scratches’ the coated surface with Lc1
increasing load to generate delamination of the coating.
Critical load corresponds to load at which delamination
or other type of adhesive damage initiates and it serves Rd
as means of quantifying the adhesion or scratch Pd
resistance of the surface layer or material. CoF

2 Scratch test

2.1 Scratch resistance of cover glass

The cover glass of smartphone displays is often made
of the so-called Gorilla glass. It is an alumina silicate
glass which is toughened by immersion in a hot,
potassium-salt, ion-exchange bath, to prevent crack
propagation and arresting flaws. The Gorilla glass has
exceptionally high hardness and scratch resistance,
low weight and excellent optical properties. However,
even such hard and scratch resistant glass can be
scratched and therefore there is an ongoing research
aiming at even further increase of its scratch resistance
by deposition of protective ceramic layers. As the
ceramic layers are very thin (~100 nm) the most
suitable instrument for characterization of the scratch
resistance is the Anton Paar Nano Scratch Tester
(NST3). The following figures show results of
progressive loading tests up to 50 mN with a 2 µm
radius sphero-conical tip on Gorilla glass with alumina
(Al2O3) 100 nm protective layer. The typical failure
morphology of the alumina layer can be observed in
Figure 3.
2.2
Figure Paint adhesion
4: Signals recording on thea scratch
during smartphone casing
measurement.
2.3 Healing (recovery) of shallow scratches on
smartphone screens
Most scratches on smartphone displays are deep and
visible by eye (Figure 5). If the user wants to have a
smooth display again, the front panel usually has to be
replaced. However, some scratches are relatively
shallow and can be removed using special recovery
process. Such process successfully removes
scratches whose depth does not exceed a certain
value. To verify whether the removal process works
properly and to determine the maximum scratch depth
that can still be healed, we created several series of
scratches with constant load. Each series of scratches
was performed with different load to achieve different
penetration depth and the reliability of the recovery
process could be evaluated. Since very shallow
scratches had to be generated, the NST3 was used for
the creation of the scratches.

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Figure 5: A scratch on a smartphone screen.
Besides generating controlled scratches, the Nano
Scratch Tester (NST3) can also be used as a
profilometer thanks to the Post-scan feature. It allows
surface profile measurements of damaged smartphone
screens and thus evaluation of the depth of the already
existing scratches.
Typical example of measurement setup is shown in
Figure 6. At the end of the scratch profile acquisition,
the data can be exported from the Scratch software and
processed directly by a suitable analysis software (e.g.
TalyMap Gold) in order to determine the depth of the
pre-existing scratches (Figure 7). Based on the results
the manufacturers can decide whether the smartphone
screen can be refurbished or not.
Figure 6: Surface profile measurement of a smartphone
screen using the NST3.
Figure 7: Surface profile of a pre-existing scratch on the screen
analyzed using the TalyMap software to determine the depth of
the scratch (0.26 µm).
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2.4 Scratch resistance of the display
plastic/metallic case
Located just next to the smartphone display, the paint
on the display frame is subject to scratch damage,
especially on the edges (Figure 8). Therefore,
manufacturers want to improve the scratch resistance
and adhesion of the paint on the display frame.
Figure 8: Damaged paint on the smartphone frame.
In one case study we compared scratch resistance and
adhesion of two different paints on the display frame.
The thickness of the paints was ~30 µm. The most
suitable instruments for scratch testing of such coatings
are either the Revetest (RST3) or the Micro Combi
Tester (MCT3) which can apply load up to 200 N (RST3)
or 30 N (MCT3) and measure depth up to 1 mm. The
scratch tests were done using 200 µm radius spherical
indenter and linear load increase. The Panorama
images of the scratches are shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9: Panorama image of the scratch on the two paints.
The delamination occurs at lower load for Paint 2
compared to Paint 1. The damage on Paint 2 is also
more extensive: Paint 2 seems to be less scratch
resistant than the Paint 1. Paint 1 should therefore
resist scratching for longer time and its use should be
preferred over the less scratch resistant Paint 2.
3 Nanoindentation
3.1 Hardness and elastic modulus of organic film
on glass substrate
An important part of many of today’s smartphone
displays is an organic film. Organic films have been
introduced and found wide use in the OLED displays.
They represent a large part of the smartphone display
market and have also a great advantage of being
flexible which allows development of foldable phones.
Mechanical properties such as hardness and elastic
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modulus of organic films are important because they 3.2 Mechanical properties of optically clear
indicate the quality of the coating and allow some adhesive (OCA)
prediction of its durability. The organic (OLED) layers
Optically clear adhesives (OCA) are thin adhesive films
have thickness between 100 nm and 500 nm and
that are used for example in smartphone industry to
measurement of their mechanical properties requires
mount different components of the display together.
very sensitive instruments. The Anton Paar Ultra
Not only the adhesive properties of these films but also
Nanoindentation Tester (UNHT3) has suitable force
their mechanical properties are important because they
and displacement resolution and it can measure
both determine how the OCA can be used. The Anton
reliably even such thin layers. Figure 10 shows typical
Paar Bioindenter has been used for measurements of
measurements on seven types of OLED layers
such adhesive films. The Bioindenter can sense the
deposited on glass substrate. The thickness of each
adhesive forces as well as it can probe the film to
layer was ~100 nm and the maximum indentation
measure its stiffness (elastic modulus) and time
depth was limited to ~10 nm.
dependent (creep) properties. Special care must be
paid to sample mounting since the adhesive films can
be very soft and have thickness in the order of tens and
hundreds of micrometers. For stiffer films, either
cyanoacrylate glue or epoxy is used to attach them to
a solid support (for example to a glass slide as in Figure
12). Softer double-sided adhesive films are simply
placed directly on a solid support. It is crucial to ensure
that the film is firmly attached to the substrate to avoid
bending of the film.
Figure 10: Typical load-displacement curves of the seven types of
In a case study we characterized three different
OLED layers. adhesive films: one soft (A) with elastic modulus (E) of
~0.35 MPa and two stiffer ones (B, C) with elastic
Five indentations with maximum load of 300 µN were modulus ~208 MPa and ~80 MPa. The maximum
done on each sample. The indentation load- indentation depth was limited to ~15% of the film
displacement curves allow calculations of hardness thickness.
and elastic modulus for each sample (Figure 11): the
elastic modulus varied between 33 GPa to 55 GPa and
hardness between 280 MPa and 400 MPa. The
standard deviation was ~5% which confirms good
homogeneity of the layers and allows for safe
differentiation of the various layers. Layers A, B and D
exhibited the highest hardness while layers C and F
had the lowest hardness. The results show that the
UNHT3 can be used for reliable characterization of
mechanical properties of very thin layers and thus help
in development of new OLED layers.

Figure 12: Bioindenter during measurement of OCA adhesive

film attached to a glass slide.

Spherical indenter with 500 µm radius was used for

these experiments; for thinner film it is recommended
to use indenter with smaller radius to avoid the
influence of the substrate. The maximum indentation
load was 0.5 mN and the maximum penetration depth
varied between 1 µm and 16 µm. The hold time at
maximum force was 30 seconds.
Figure 13 shows a comparison of three indentation
Figure 11: Hardness and elastic modulus of the seven tested curves for each of the three OCA films. The pull-on
OLED layers. adhesive forces were recorded at the indenter
approach to the surface. The measurements show very
good repeatability despite being done in different areas
on each sample. The indenter was cleaned before
measurements of each sample. This shows that

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although adhesive properties depend on the surface
state of both contacting parts, a stable state was
reached since adhesive forces and all indentation
curves on one sample are very similar.

Figure 13: Comparison of indentations on three OCA films (A,

B. C) with various elastic moduli.

4 Conclusion
Scratch test and nanoindentation techniques are
important characterization methods for smartphone
displays since they can simulate real life situations
such as shock or scratching with hard objects.
The scratch test is suitable for studying of scratch
resistance of the cover glass that protects smartphone
displays. This method also helps to characterize
adhesion of paint on the display frame and thus to
select paint with the best adhesion. Finally, this
technique can also be used to measure the maximal
depth of pre-existing scratches on the screen in order
to evaluate if it can be refurbished or not.
Nanoindentation is useful for measuring hardness and
elastic modulus of thin functional films which are
deposited on glass in the display. Mechanical
properties reflect the quality of the films during
development of new types of displays. In addition, the
nanoindentation method allows determination of
adhesive and mechanical properties of optically clear
adhesives (OCA) that are used for mounting of
smartphone screens.

Authors: Xavier Guthmann, Jiri Nohava.

5 Reference
1. Number of smartphone users from 2016 to 2021.
Statistica. [Online] August 2021.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-
smartphone-users-worldwide/.

Contact Anton Paar TriTec

Tel: +41 32 552 16 00
tritec.application@anton-paar.com
www.anton-paar.com

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