I have used nanoindentation to characterise polymer nanocomposites. It can be used for hardness, modulus, plasticity index. Please kindly have a look Article Inhibition of Polyimide Photodegradation by Incorporation of...

Nanoindentation test is used for measuring the mechanical properties of materials like material Hardness and Elastisity in terms of Young's modulus. Thin film of material is sufficient for this study.

Dear Mahmood Sanei

Nanoindentation contains a variety of indentation hardness tests applied to small volumes of material. Although AFM or SEM techniques can be used, a Berkovich tip must be used. Mechanical properties such as Young's modulus, hardness, strain-rate sensitivity, and activation volume can be determined under this test. I recommend the following web pages:

http://www.nanoindentation.cornell.edu/home_main.htm

http://www.slideshare.net/viet4777/nano-indentation-lecture1

and the following book:

Nanoindentation by Fischer-Cripps, Anthony C., 3rd Edition., 2011, XXII, 280 p. 107 illus. of Springer.

Mechanical properties e.g.:

Article Elastic properties of chemically modified baker's yeast cell...

...

Article Atomic Force Microscopy Study of Living Baker's Yeast Cells

...

Article Atomic Force Microscopy Study of Living Baker's Yeast Cells

...

Article Baker's Yeast Transformation Studies by Atomic Force Microscopy

Effect of roughness on hardness can be found by conducting nano-indentation test.

http://eprints.iisc.ernet.in/1395/1/nanoindentation.pdf

If you need an example you can read my publication https://www.researchgate.net/publication232806454_Mechanical_properties_of_metallic_ribbons_investigated_by_depth_sensing_indentation_technique?ev=prf_pub

and if you are interested i will send to you oryginal text

or here

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/235643647_Mechanical_properties_of_Co-based_amorphous_ribbons?ev=prf_pub

Article Mechanical properties of Co-based amorphous ribbons

Nanoindentation is mainly a surface mechanical characterization technique where mainly you obtain Hardness and Elastic Modulus but the data can be further utilized for computing Plasticity Indes, Efects of different plasticizer on polymeric films, effects of degree of crystallinity in case of semicrystalline polymers even the surface plasticization of polymers in different solvents. You can see the following articles on this as well

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257482408_Continuous_stiffness_mode_nanoindentation_response_of_poly(methyl_methacrylate)_surfaces

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/251723205_Surface_Plasticization_of_Poly(ether_ether_ketone)?ev=prf_pub

Article Continuous stiffness mode nanoindentation response of poly(m...

Article Surface Plasticization of Poly(ether ether ketone)

useful discussion

Nanoindentation gives a wealth of information at the nanolevel. Macroscale tests do not provide insights into the material. Mainly, for polymeric materials, nanoindentation provides crystallinity, homogeneity, heterogeneity, and hydrogen bond interactions at the molecular level. For more information, you can go through my journals. 

I have used nanoindentation to characterise polymer nanocomposites. It can be used for hardness, modulus, plasticity index. Please kindly have a look Article Inhibition of Polyimide Photodegradation by Incorporation of...

Hi

The nano indentation test may be useful when we nees to know about hardness of polymer composites (cross linking density), and in metals the grain boundaries and in steels the martensitic and bainite structure hardness may be evaluated.

Best

Arunprakash Vincent