Published: The Surface-Topography Challenge, with our participation

We are pleased to share that the Surface-Topography Challenge paper has now been published in Tribology Letters. This large-scale, community-driven study set out to improve how surface roughness and topography are measured and described — an issue that is central to applications ranging from robotics and semiconductors to medical devices and everyday safety.

Under the leadership of Professor Robert Carpick, our group contributed a diverse set of surface measurements using three complementary techniques:

• White-light interference microscopy (Zygo NewView 6300 WLI), carried out by Dr. Parker LaMascus. Multiple interferograms were acquired with a 20× Mirau objective and carefully processed in Gwyddion and contact.engineering to extract power spectra, height distributions, and roughness parameters.
• Laser confocal scanning microscopy (Keyence VK-X3000), performed by Dr. Lu Fang, providing high-resolution areal topography maps of the challenge surfaces.
• Atomic force microscopy (Asylum AFM MFP-3D), performed by PhD candidate Li Yuan. Tapping mode scans were conducted under controlled humidity and temperature, with rigorous calibration and data correction procedures applied to ensure reproducible nanoscale characterization.

These measurements, spanning from nanometer to micrometer scales, formed part of the global dataset that enabled cross-comparison of techniques and provided insights into the strengths and limitations of different approaches.

Led by Tevis Jacobs (University of Pittsburgh), Lars Pastewka (University of Freiburg), Martin Müser (Saarland University), and graduate student Arushi Pradhan, the Challenge invited researchers worldwide to measure standardized surfaces with their own techniques and upload results to a central repository. The response was overwhelming:

• 150+ participants from 64 groups across 20 countries
• Over 2,000 measurements collected using diverse methods
• Findings revealed differences spanning up to six orders of magnitude between techniques, underscoring the complexity of “defining true surface topography.”

The study demonstrates that combining multiple measurement approaches produces more accurate and useful descriptions of surfaces. The effort marks a step toward developing reliable, standardized metrics that can be applied across research, product development, and quality assurance.

We are proud to have been part of this international collaboration.

🔗 Read the press release
🔗 Visit the official website
🔗 Access the paper (DOI: 10.1007/s11249-025-02014-y)

By admin in Research on August 16, 2025