Nanowear of atomic force microscope tips: Modeling and experiments

In this paper, a simple analytical model to predict the nanowear of atomic force microscope tips is presented and experimentally validated. The model is based on the assumption that the energy consumed to remove the unit volume is a material/structural (i.e. size-dependent) parameter. Nanoscratch tests show that this hypothesis is plausible and, more importantly, that the specific energy is close to the material strength at the considered size scale, i.e. the theoretical material strength at the nanoscale. With our approach, predictions on nanowear, e.g. for an optimal nanomachine design, can be made a priori.