Research on nano-cutting and mechanism of material removal

An experimental study on cutting materials at nanometer scale is conducted by applying the principle and technology of scanning probe microscope (SPM). It is revealed from the experiments that cutting inside SPM is an excellent and direct way to research the material removal process at small sizes. Based on the experimental results, the mechanism for the chip formation in the cutting of amorphous alloy is discussed. It is found that the deformation along the direction of chip flow occurs before localized shear really happens, and a simplifying geometrical model is proposed to illustrate the deformation.