The finite element method (FEM) was used to study the elastic-plastic contact in the coating systems with interlayer. The results reveal that with the increase of interlayer thickness, the maximum shear stress of coating/interlayer and interlayer/substrate interfaces decreases. Moreover, the sharply changed shear stress between the interfaces of coating/interlayer and interlayer/substrate decreases too. There is no further decrease when interlayer thickness increase to 0.04 mm and above. With the increasing of interlayer elastic modulus, the shear stress of coating/interlayer interface decreases while the shear stress of interlayer/substrate interface increases. Meanwhile, the higher elastic modulus leads to the intensive tensile stress concentration on the interface of coating/interlayer. Hence, the interlayer with appropriate elastic modulus not only reduces the shear stress of coating/interlayer and interlayer/substrate interfaces but also decreases the tensile stress of coating/interlayer interface. The mechanical properties of coating systems were investigated with different interlayer yield strength. The effective hardness and elastic modulus increase with the increase of interlayer yield strength, which is good to protect the substrate from the deformation. In addition, higher indentation load can lead to the decrease of effective hardness and elastic modulus.

Specimen survivability is a primary concern to those who utilize atom probe tomography (APT) for materials analysis. The state-of-the-art in understanding survivability might best be described as common-sense application of basic physics principles to describe failure mechanisms. For example, APT samples are placed under near-failure mechanical-stress conditions, so reduction in the force required to initiate field evaporation must provide for higher survivability—a common sense explanation of survivability. However, the interplay of various analytical conditions (or instrumentation) and how they influence survivability (e.g., decreasing the applied evaporation field improves survivability), and which factors have more impact than others has not been studied. In this paper, we report on the systematic analysis of a material composed of a silicon-dioxide layer surrounded on two sides by silicon. In total, 261 specimens were fabricated and analyzed under a variety of conditions to correlate statistically significant survivability trends with analysis conditions and other specimen characteristics. The primary result suggests that, while applied field/force plays an obvious role in survivability for this material, the applied field alone does not predict survivability trends for silicon/silicon-dioxide interfaces. The rate at which ions are extracted from the specimen (both in terms of ions-per-pulse and pulse-frequency) has similar importance.