basic principle as with all common measures of hardness is to observe the questioned material 39 s ability to resist plastic deformation from a standard source the vickers test can be used for all metals and has one of the widest scales among hardness tests the unit of hardness given by the test is known as the vickers pyramid number hv the hv may be determined from eq 1 fig2 shows flowchart detailing process 200 in accordance with the described embodiments process 200 can begin at 202 by applying a substantially uniform layer of polymer on a surface at 204 selected portions of the uniform layer are removed to expose at least some of the surface in the form of an unmasked region in one embodiment the firming of the unmasked region can be carried out by a 3d controller or equivalent at 206 the exposed surface portions are treated to a nitriding atmosphere plasma gaseous or other as appropriate at 208 the exogenous atoms from the nitriding atmosphere are incorporated into the lattice of the exposed surface at 210 nitride fingers are formed in the regions that incorporated the exogenous atoms fig3 shows a representative cross section of surface s illustrating relative nano particle average density for masked region and unmasked.