Investigation on friction behavior and processing depth prediction of polymer in nanoscale using AFM probe-based nanoscratching method

The present work investigates the friction behavior and machined depth prediction when scratching on a polymer material using an atomic force microscopy (AFM) tip. According to the calculated results based on the experimental tests and the proposed model, the flow stress during machining is demonstrated to be a logarithmic increase with the scratching speed increasing, and the adhesive friction coefficient has little change with the variation of the normal load and scratching speed. Finally, several nanochannels with expected machined depth are achieved on the polymer surface using the prediction method presented in this study and the deviation between the experimental and desired values is mainly less than 10%.