Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Journal of Manufacturing Processes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/manpro

Study of tip wear for AFM-based vibration-assisted nanomachining process T

Xiangcheng Kong, Jia Deng, Jingyan Dong*, Paul H. Cohen
Edward P. Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Nanofabrication technologies have many applications in science and engineering. Among different nanofabri-
Tip-based nanomachining cation technologies, the tip-based vibration-assisted nanomachining using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)
Atomic force microscope (AFM) provides a low-cost, easy-to-setup approach for the production of nano-scale structures. As the resolution and
Tip wear monitoring quality of the machined features are greatly affected by the radius and sharpness of the tip, it is critical to
Tip wear modeling
investigate the behavior of tip wear during the nanomachining process and to estimate the tip life. In this work,
the evolvement of the tip wear was characterized and modeled to predict tip wear and tip life for the nano-
machining process. Besides the direct inspection of the tip radius using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM),
the pull-off force between the AFM tip and the sample surface was found to correlate well with the tip radius,
which enabled the measurement of tip wear directly without unloading the tip from the AFM. To study the tip
wear at different conditions, the tip radius was measured from the pull-off force under a wide range of machining
conditions. The change rates of the tip radius were significantly affected by the machining parameters, such as
setpoint force and feed rate. Moreover, during the nanomachining process, three regions were identified for the
tip wear evolvement as initial tip wear region, transition region, and tip failure region. Regression models were
developed to describe the tip wear at different stages, and to estimate the tip life (i.e. when the tip needs to be
changed), which provide usefully information for future process planning and process optimization.

1. Introduction is a low-cost approach for the production of nano-scale structures. The

Nanofabrication, especially the fabrication of master patterns and
masks, is critical for emerging nanotechnology applications including
fundamental physics, chemistry, electronics, materials, and biology.
There are many nanofabrication methods that were able to fabricate
nanopatterns and nanostructures, including X-ray lithography [1–3],
EUV lithography [4,5], e-beam lithography [6,7], nanoimprint litho-
graphy [8,9], Dip-pen nanolithography [10] etc. Despite impressive
resolution from these methods, many of them rely on the masks and
molds fabricated by e-beam lithography to enable their processes. The
e-beam lithography systems are very expensive to acquire and to
maintain. Compared with the expensive e-beam lithography system
with very high hourly rate, tip-based nanofabrication with Atomic
Force Microscope (AFM) uses lower-cost equipment with easy-to-setup
system and tool to produce nanoscale features. The hourly rate for using
an AFM is much lower than that for using an e-beam system, although
the short tip life could increase the cost of AFM based nanofabrication.
Other than the cost, the AFM based nanofabrication provides compar-
able resolution to that from the e-beam lithography.
Tip-based nanomachining using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM)
simplest application of tip-based nanomachining is direct scratching
using a sharp AFM tip, in which the sample surface is modified me-
chanically by cutting or plastic deformation. Direct scratching is easy to
apply, but generally has low manufacturing throughput. Since the size
of the produced feature is primarily affected by the tip radius, multiple
scratching steps have to be used to machine large features.
Furthermore, in the direct scratching process, a large normal force is a
prerequisite to ident the tip into the sample for mechanical machining
[11–13], which causes severe tip wear. To overcome these dis-
advantages, researchers have developed and demonstrated vibration-
assisted nanomachining approaches for low-cost high-rate nanofabri-
cation [14–16]. Three-dimensional nanostructures were successfully
fabricated using this nanomachining process [17,18]. With the assis-
tance of vibration, the machining force as well as tip wear were sig-
nificantly reduced. To understand the mechanism of the tip-based vi-
bration-assisted nanomachining process, the tip-sample interaction
forces (i.e. the machining forces) involved in this process and the re-
sultant feature dimensions under given machining parameters have
been analyzed and modeled in previous research [19,20], which pro-
vided useful guidelines for selecting the machining parameters and

⁎
Corresponding author at: Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, North Carolina State University, 414-C Daniels Hall, Campus box 7906, Raleigh,
North Carolina, 27695-7906, USA.
E-mail address: jdong@ncsu.edu (J. Dong).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmapro.2019.12.013
Received 25 June 2019; Received in revised form 6 December 2019; Accepted 9 December 2019
1526-6125/ © 2019 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Kong, et al.
Fig. 1. (a) Schematics of the vibration assisted nanomachining system. (b) Tip vibration in xy-plane control the feature width in one machining pass. (c) The top view
of machining process shows the tip-sample engagement during one rotation cycle.
planning the process properly to improve productivity. In these models,
the tip radius was assumed constant during the machining process,
which is reasonable for brand new tips that have only undergone light
machining tasks. However, when a tip was used in nanomachining for
high volume production, the tip can be severely worn resulting in a
much larger tip radius than that of a new tip. Such tip wear can sig-
nificantly affect the machining performance and feature resolution. It is
critical to understand the tip wear and estimate the tip life for the na-
nomachining process.
For the tool wear at the conventional scale, many monitoring and
modeling methods have been developed to predict its behavior, in-
cluding analytical modeling, finite element analysis, and empirical
modeling techniques. These modeling methods have been applied to
different machining processes like turning, milling, and other cutting
processes [21–25]. Analytical models have been developed to describe
the evolution of tool wear during different machining processes
[26–28]. The cutting conditions and average tool flank wear during
milling process were correlated in the model, in which the cutting
power was employed to calculate the normal cutting power for tool
wear monitoring. Due to the difficulties to build analytical models,
numerical methods have also been adapted to predict the tool wear
during machining processes. A thermo-mechanical discrete element
model has been developed to study the cutting process [29], which
considered both mechanical and thermal phenomena and their re-
ciprocal influence for the cutting process. Finite element method (FEM)
has also been used to investigate and optimize the tool wear in drilling
process for the difficult-to-cut nickel-based superalloy [30]. The effect
of the process variables including cutting speed, feedrate and tool
diameter on tool wear were analyzed and characterized. A tool wear
model for twist drill was then built to study the mechanism of drill
wear. The result from the FEA model was demonstrated to match well
with the experimental data.
For AFM imaging and tip-based fabrication processes, the tip radius
is a critical factor that determines the image quality or dimensional
accuracy of the machined features. However, the tip wear is an in-
evitable result of both the imaging and tip-based nanomachining pro-
cesses. The consequences of tip wear include the degradation of the
image resolution, false measurement, reduced fabrication resolution,
and reduced fabrication capability. Due to the significant differences in
the tools and machining mechanisms between the conventional scale
machining and micro/nanometer scale tip-based machining, many of
the tool wear models for the conventional machining process cannot be
directly applied for micro/nano scale machining processes. A few
atomic-level modeling methods [[31–35]] have been developed to
study the micro/nano-scale machining process, such as molecular dy-
namics method (MD), Monte Carlo (MC) simulation method. Some in-
itial parametric and exprimental studies were performed to observe and
understand the tip wear in nanomachining applications [31,32]. In
48
Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56
these studies, the tip wear were mostly observed by a scanning electron
microscope (SEM) or transmission electron microscopy (TEM) by
measuring the tip radius and the evolvement of tip profile [37[36]].
Although SEM and TEM provide very accurate measurement of the tip
wear and tip radius, the machining operation has to be interrupted
frequently to take off the tip from the AFM for the off-line SEM or TEM
inspection and measurement. To overcome such inconvenience and to
monitor the tip radius continuously, the pull-off forces between the
AFM tip and the sample surface was measured and correlated with the
AFM tip radius [37] to study the tip wear under simple sliding between
the tip and the sample.
In this paper, the tip wear behavior for the vibration assisted na-
nomachining process was systematically studied with process models
being developed to understand the correlation between process condi-
tions and corresponding tip life. In addition to the SEM inspection, the
pull-off force between the AFM tip and the sample surface was char-
acterized and ultilized to measure the tip wear directly without un-
loading the tip from the AFM and interupting the machining process. To
study the tip wear at different conditions, the tip radius was measured
from the pull-off force under a wide range of machining conditions.
During the nanomachining process, three regions (i.e. initial tip wear
region, transition region, and tip failure region) were observed as the
tip was gradully worn off. Regression models were developed to de-
scribe the tip wear at different stages, and to estimate the tip life (i.e.
when the tip needs to be changed), which provide usefully information
for future proces planning and process optimization.
2. Experimental setup for vibration-assisted nanomachining
process
The nanomachining experiments were performed on a commercial
AFM, Park XE-70 (Park Systems Corp®) with a customized nano-vi-
bration system (Fig. 1(a)) [14]. The lab customized nano-vibration
system provided the tip-sample vibration to implement the vibration-
assisted nanomachining process. To monitor the machining process, the
signals from four-quadrant photodetector in the AFM were used to
measure the normal deflection and torsion of the cantilever as A–B and
C–D signals. The normal deflection and torsion of the cantilever, re-
presenting the normal force and lateral forces respectively during the
nanomachining process, were acquired by LabView through a data
acquisition device (NI USB-6295). The command signals (i.e. synchro-
nized sinusoid signals with 90° phase difference) were also generated by
the data acquisition device to drive the xy-piezo actuators for xy in-
plane circular vibration.
We used a tapping mode cantilever with a nominal stiffness of 48 N/
m and a resonant frequency of 190 kHz as the tool for the nano-
machining process. A PMMA film was used as the sample to perform
tip-based vibration-assisted nanomachining. The PMMA film was spin-
X. Kong, et al.
coated on a silicon substrate with about 40 nm in thickness after baking
to dry. The sample was mounted on the nano-vibration system to be
vibrated in the xy plane at a frequency of 2 KHz. To simplify the
modeling process, vertical z-vibration was not applied in this study.
With the xy-vibration, the width of the machined trench can be easily
controlled in one machining pass, as shown in Fig. 1(b). Moreover, with
the assistance of the xy-vibration, the material removal was distributed
to each rotational cycle, only a small slice of material was removed in
each cycle (Fig. 1(c)), which effectively reduced the resulting ma-
chining force and increased the overall machining speed [14,15].
3. Detection of tip wear during nanomachining process
3.1. Tip wear measurement and impact on features produced
During the nanomachining process, tool wear is generated by the
direct contact and sliding motion between the cutting tool (AFM tip)
and the workpiece. Along with the development of tip wear, the ma-
chining force, as well as the cutting temperature, will increase, which
will degrade the dimensional accuracy and surface quality of the pro-
duced features. Moreover, the tip has to be replaced when the ma-
chining performance become unsatisfactory. The change of the tools in
the nanomachining process increases the machining cost and reduces
the productivity. As a result, tool wear is a critical factor that greatly
affects the quality and productivity of the nanomachining process. For
the tip-based vibration-assisted nanomachining, the effect of tool wear
is even more significant as the dimensions of the machined patterns are
affected by the dimensions of the AFM tip. The radius of the AFM tip is
usually around tens of nm, while the depth of machined patterns is at
the same range. As a result, when the radius of an AFM tip increased by
a small amount, the dimensions of machined patterns are greatly in-
fluenced. Unlike conventional scale machining, in which many models
have been studied to analyze the tool wear during the machining pro-
cess, little research has been performed for the tip wear in the nan-
ometer scale machining process.
To study the tip wear systematically during the nanomachining
process, parallel experiments were conducted. Six new tips were ap-
plied to machine 0, 2, 4, 8, 12 and 20 identical patterns. Each designed
pattern includes 32 identical trenches with a length of 5 μm and a width
of 60 nm that were machined using the same machining parameters
(with the setpoint force, feed rate, and XY vibration amplitude to be
1000 nN, 2 μm/s and 40 mV respectively) to study the evolution of tip
wear and the resulting machining performance. Each tip was observed
in the SEM after the machining of the requisite number of patterns.
Fig. 2(a) provides the SEM images of six tips at different wear stages.
With the ThreePointCircularROI, a plugin of Image J software, a circle
was created based on three selected points on the cutting edge of the
tip, whose radius was used to estimate the corresponding tip radius.
With this method, the radius of these tips were measured, and the
change in tip radius during the machining process was recorded, as
shown in Fig. 2(b). Clearly, after a tip was used to produce more pat-
terns, the tip experienced more wear, resulting a larger tip radius.
When using a brand-new tip with sharp tip radius, the trenches
produced had large and uniform depths ranging from 20 nm to 25 nm
(Fig.3(a)). During machining, the tip gradually wore yielding a larger
tip radius. The blunt tip with larger radius also reduced the trench
depth. When the tip was severely worn and tip radius was too large, its
machining capability to produce nanoscale features was significantly
degraded, because with a large tip radius, the given setpoint force
cannot produce enough stress for the tip to indent into the sample. For
the recorded depth in Fig. 3(d), the depth of each trench was measured
at five different locations. The variations from these measurements
were pretty small (less than 1−2 nm), which is close to the measure-
ment resolution of the AFM system. From our observation of experi-
mental results, the evolvement of the tip wear can be categorized into
three stages. When a new tip was used, the tip was sharp enough from
49
Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56
which high-quality structures were reliably produced. When the tip was
used for certain machining operations and gradually worn, a transition
stage was observed. At this stage, machining results became unreliable
and the trench depth reduced rapidly to below 5 nm (Fig.3(b)) due to
the larger tip radius. Finally, at the tip failure stage, the tip was severely
worn and tip radius became very large. The worn tip cannot remove
materials effectively (Fig. 3(c)).
3.2. In-situ tip wear detection
Although the SEM images can be used to detect tip wear and mea-
sure tip-radius effectively, this process is time-consuming and cannot be
performed in-situ. To take SEM images of the AFM tip, the tip has to be
removed from the AFM, resulting in the interruption of the machining
process and reduction in the productivity. To solve this problem, a low-
cost, easy-to-implement method is needed to detect the tip radius and
tip wear without interrupting the nanomachining process.
A pull-off (or adhesive) force is seen when the AFM tip is retracted
from the sample, which provides a promising method to estimate tip
radius and to detect tip wear [38]. The pull-off force can be con-
veniently measured from the force-distance response curve when ap-
proaching the tip to the sample first and then retracting the tip from the
sample. A typical force-distance curve is shown in Fig. 4. The vertical
axis represents the normal force applied on the cantilever due to the
interaction between the tip and the sample, while the horizontal axis is
the displacement of the cantilever. When the tip is far away from the
sample surface, the cantilever has no deflection and zero tip-sample
interaction force. As the tip gradually approaches the sample, the
cantilever begins to deflect toward the sample, due to an attractive
force between them. After the tip physically touch and push the sample,
the cantilever is deflected away from the surface due to the repulsive
interaction force between the tip and the sample. Finally, when the
cantilever is retracted from the sample, the tip-sample contact breaks at
a value defined by the pull-off force, which is the adhesion force be-
tween the tip and the sample. This adhesion force is related to the tip-
sample contact and interaction. For a blunt tip with a large tip radius,
there is a larger contact between the tip and the sample, causing a
larger force to retract the tip. As a result, the pull-off force is a good
indicator of the tip radius.
In this study, the force-distance curve can be easily measured im-
mediately following each machining operation. After machining on the
PMMA film, the AFM tip was moved to an area of silicon to measure the
force-distance curve using an “indentation mode.” Since the humidity
level could significantly affect the measured pull-off force, the mea-
surement experiments were conducted when the ambient humidity was
between 16% and 21%. During the measurement, both the approach
and retraction speed were set as 0.01 μm/s, and the applied normal
force was set as 200 nN. After the tip pressed the sample at 200 nN, the
cantilever was slowly retracted. The force-distance curves were ob-
tained for the both approach and retraction stages, which were used to
calculate the pull-off force.
In Fig. 5(a), the measured pull-off force and the tip radius measured
by the SEM were compared in the same plot. As can be observed, the
changing trend of the pull-off forces matches very well with that of the
tip radius, and the good correlation between these two variables can be
clearly observed. Therefore, the pull-off force was used as an alternative
for measuring the tip radius, which can be used to monitor and study
the tip wear without interrupting the machining process. The pull-off
forces measured at different moments provided detailed information
about the evolvement of the tip wear during the nanomachining pro-
cess. Fig. 5(b) showed the development of tip wear and tip radius (re-
flected by the pull-off force) for a typical nanomachining condition with
the setpoint force and feed rate at 1000 nN and 2 μm/s respectively. As
the tip worn from the machining operation, the tip radius became
larger, and a larger pull-off force was measured during the tip retraction
process.
X. Kong, et al.
Fig. 2. (a) SEM images for tip 1–6 after machining different number of groove patterns. (b) Measured tip radius at different total machining distance (one pattern is
160 μm in machining distance).
4. Tip wear behaviors under different machining conditions
The tip wear behaviors were different under different process con-
ditions, such as setpoint force and feedrate in nanomachining. It is
critical to understand the effects of these machining parameters on the
tip wear and develop the tip wear models to estimate the tip life and the
machined distance before the tip has to be changed. To understand the
impact of the machining parameters (i.e. setpoint force and feed rate)
on the tip wear, a full factorial experiment with these two factors was
designed and conducted. For each factor, three different values were
assigned corresponding to the low, medium, and high level of this
factor, as shown in Table 1.
To implement this factorial design experiment, nine new tips were
applied to machine trenches with different machining parameters, as
shown in Table 1. For each machining condition, the tip was used to
machine multiple patterns until it was fully worn out, and cannot
produce noticeable features on the sample. The machined patterns were
imaged with their feature depth measured using the same AFM at the
tapping mode. After finish machining each pattern with 32 trenches,
the pull-off forces were measured using the “indentation mode” to re-
flect the tip wear at that moment.
The values of measured pull-off force and average feature depth
during the nanomachining process at three different setpoint forces
(500 nN, 1000 nN and 1500 nN respectively) and three feedrate (1 μm/
s, 2 μm/3, and 3 μm/s) were plotted from Figs. 6–8. Clearly, from these
figures, similar trends can be observed for the change in the pull-off
force (i.e. tip radius). For each machining condition, the pull-off forces
increased when more patterns were machined using that tip, indicating
the increased tip radius. In the meantime, along with the increase of the
50
Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56
tip radius, the depth of the machined features decreased. After certain
numbers of the patterns were machined for each machining condition,
the depth of the machined features decreased rapidly, indicating severe
tip wear and large tip radius that became ineffective to remove material
at the given machining condition. Moreover, from the evolution of the
pull-off force in Figs. 6–8, two regions (at the beginning of the ma-
chining experiments vs. at the end of machining experiments) can be
clearly observed, which have quite different wear rates (i.e. change rate
of the tip radius or pull-off force). These two regions corresponded to
the two different stages of the nanomachining, as the initial tip wear
region and the tip failure region as we discussed before. For the first
stage (i.e. initial tip wear region), the tip was still sharp enough to
remove material, while at the late stage (i.e. the tip failure region), the
tip became very blunt and cannot effectively produce trenches on the
sample. The tip wear behavior with and without effective machining
was quite different. During effective machining when the tip can be
used to remove materials and produce trenches with large depth, the
change rate of the pull-off force (i.e. tip radius) was smaller compared
with the change rate when the tip cannot effectively remove material
and produce trenches on the sample. For the later condition, the tip
simply slid on the sample surface, resulting in a faster wear rate. In
between these two regions, a transition region was defined to describe
the change between these two stages, in which the depth of the ma-
chined features decreased rapidly, and the machining process became
unreliable.
The process conditions have strong effects on the tip wear behavior,
as shown in Figs. 6–8. For these different machining conditions, the
change rates of the pull-off forces can be estimated when the tips were
capable to machine the patterns on the sample. Clearly, the change
X. Kong, et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56

Fig. 3. (a) The pattern machined with a brand-new tip during initial tip wear region. (b) The pattern machined with a partially worn tip during transition region. (c)
The pattern machined with a severely worn tip during tip failure regions. (d) The measured feature depth during machining process from different tips, represented
by different colors.

Fig. 4. Force-distance curve obtained from an AFM when approaching the tip to
and retracting the tip from the sample. The pull-off force, as the maximum
attraction force during retraction, is proportional to the tip radius.

rates of the pull-off forces (that is the rate of the tip wear) during na-
nomachining increased with a larger setpoint force and a larger feed
rate. This behavior is easy to understand, as a larger machining load
resulted in more severe wear of the tip used in the nanomachining.

5. Modeling of the tip wear and tip life
To successfully apply and plan the tip-based nanomachining pro-
cess, it is critical to understand tip wear at different machining condi-
tions and estimate the life of an AFM tip, so as to decide when to change
the tip to ensure the machining performance and plan the
Fig. 5. (a) Plot of the measured tip radius using SEM and the pull-off force. The
pull-off force is strong correlated with the tip radius. (b) A typical evolvement
of the measured pull-off forces during the nanomachining process under 1000
nN setpoint force and 2 μm/s feed rate. In the plots, one pattern is 160 μm in
machining distance.

51
X. Kong, et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56

Table 1 the tip is relatively sharp and can effectively remove materials to ma-
Factorial design experiments for tip wear study. chine trenches on the sample with large depth. Both the pull-off forces
Test number Setpoint force/nN Feed rate/μm/s and the change rates of the pull-off forces are small and the quality of
machined patterns in this region is good. After the tip finished ma-
1 500 1 chining a number of patterns, the transition region is observed. In the
2 500 2
transition region, the pull-off force (i.e. an indication of the tip radius)
3 500 3
4 1000 1
increases rapidly, indicating the quick wear of the tip. In the meantime,
5 1000 2 the depth of the machined features decreases rapidly. In the final tip
6 1000 3 failure region, due to the large tip radius, with the given machining
7 1500 1 condition, features/trenches cannot be effectively machined on the
8 1500 2
sample. The tip is simply sliding on the surface of the sample without
9 1500 3
removing any material. The change rate of the pull-off force is much
larger than that in the initial tip wear region, which indicates a fast
nanomachining process efficiently with the minimized cost. As can be wear rate of the tip.
seen in Figs. 6–8, the change rates of the pull-off force and the ma- Fig. 9 provides a typical example of different tip wear regions
chined feature depth were different under different machining condi- during the machining process. For the machining of the first nine pat-
tions. To model the effect of different process conditions on the tip wear terns, the machined feature depth decreases slowly, and the pull-off
rate, we need to study and quantify the change rate of the pull-off force force also increases slightly. Between the machining of the 10th pattern
and compare the results among different machining conditions. and the 13th pattern, the depth of machined features rapidly decreases.
In Fig. 9, to ease the observation of the evolution of the tip wear and Finally, after the 13th pattern, no noticeable trenches can be machined
the resulting feature depth at each wear stage, the pull-off force and the with feature depth close to zero while the pull-off force continuously
corresponding feature depth (x10) for one machining condition (i.e. increases with a steeper slope than before.
1000 nN setpoint force and 2 μm/s feedrate) were plotted together. Since each pattern machined in the experiments included 32 lines
Based on the change rate of the pull-off force and the machined feature with the length of each line of 5 μm, it is more formal to describe
depths, the nanomachining process can be roughly divided into three change of pull-off force with respect to the total machined linear dis-
regions: Initial tip wear region, Transition region, and Tip failure re- tance (160 μm for each pattern machined), regardless of whether the
gion. The initial tip wear region starts when a new tip begins to be used machined trench is visible or not. The pull-off forces during the initial
for nanomachining and produces the first few patterns. In this region, tip wear region and the tip failure region for all the machining condi-
tions (Figs. 6–8) were analyzed. Fig. 10 is an example for one

Fig. 6. Measured pull-off forces and the average depth of the machined trenches as a function of the number of machined patterns when the setpoint force is 500 nN
at three feedrates (1, 2, 3 μm/s). In the plots, one pattern is 160 μm in machining distance.

52
X. Kong, et al.
Fig. 7. Measured pull-off forces and the average depth of the machined trenches as a function of the number of machined patterns when the setpoint force is 1000 nN
at three feedrates (1, 2, 3 μm/s). In the plots, one pattern is 160 μm in machining distance.
machining condition as given in Fig. 9. The regression models fit the
data very well with goodness of fit R-squared at about 0.95. The X axis
is the machined linear distance (μm), while the Y axis is the pull-off
force (nN) measured after each machined pattern. For both the initial
tip wear region and tip failure region, linear regression lines were fitted
to correlate the pull-off forces with the machined linear distance under
each machining condition, which were defined as the local fitting lines.
The slopes of these local fitting lines represent the change rate of the
pull-off forces with respect to the machined distance. For the initial tip
wear region, the intercepts of the line with the vertical axis represent
the extrapolated pull-off force for a brand-new tip before machining.
Table 2 lists the change rates of the pull-off forces for the initial tip
wear region and tip failure region under all nine different machining
conditions. Clearly, the change rates of the pull-off forces (that reflects
the wear rate of the tip) increased with a larger setpoint force and a
larger feed rate. This behavior is easy to understand, as a larger ma-
chining load resulted in more severe wear of the tip used in the nano-
machining. Moreover, for each machining condition, the tip wear rate is
much higher (more than three times) at the tip failure region than that
from the initial tip wear region. The difference in the wear rate for these
two regions can be explained intuitively. At the initial tip wear region,
the tip is sharp enough to indent into the sample’s surface for me-
chanical machining. Both the bottom of the tip and the side of the tip
interact with the sample. Tip wear happens at the bottom surface and
the side surface, although the wear rate at the bottom tends to be larger.
The tip wear on the side surface sharpens the tip and effectively reduces
the increase rate of the tip radius. At the tip failure region, the tip is too
blunt to be indented into the sample to have effective machining. The
tip simply slides on the sample, and the resulting tip wear mainly
53
Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56
happens at the bottom surface, which rapidly increases the tip radius, as
indicated by the large change rate of the pull-off force.
To study the effect of the machining conditions (i.e. setpoint force
and feedrate) on the tip wear, process models were developed to de-
scribe the progression of the tip wear and estimate the transition be-
tween the initial region and the tip failure region. The transition from
the initial region to the tip failure region is an indicator of tip life. From
Figs. 6–8, approximately linear trends are observed for the tip wear
with respect to the machined distance for both the initial region and the
tip failure region. Linear regression models were developed to correlate
the pull-off forces with the machined linear distance during both the
initial tip wear region and tool failure region. In the linear regression
model, both the slope and intercept were correlated with machining
parameters that were setpoint force and feedrate, which was shown as
Eq. 1.
Fp = slope × Dlinear +intercept
F k2
slope = k1 ⎛ set ⎞ feed k3 + k 4
⎝ 1000 ⎠
F k6
intercept= k5 ⎛ set ⎞ feed k7 + k8
⎝ 1000 ⎠ (1)
Fp is the pull-off forces measured during the initial tip wear region (nN),
Dlinear (μm) is the machined linear distance, Feed is the feed rate (μm/s),
Fset is the applied setpoint force (nN). In the model, the setpoint force is
scaled (by a factor of 1000) to make the value of the force and feedrate
of comparable magnitude. slope and intercept represent the slope and
intercept of the linear regression model where k1, k2, k3, k 4 and k5 are
regression coefficients. With the pull-off forces and corresponding
X. Kong, et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56

Fig. 8. Measured pull-off forces and the average depth of the machined trenches as a function of the number of machined patterns when the setpoint force is 1500 nN
at three feedrates (1, 2, 3 μm/s). In the plots, one pattern is 160 μm in machining distance.

Fig. 9. The measured pull-off forces and the feature depth (x10) as a function of
the number of machined patterns. The blue dots represent the machined feature
depth, while the boxes represent the pull-off forces. Based on the rate of change
of pull-off forces or feature depth, the tip wear process can be identified as three
regions: Initial tip wear region, transition region and tip failure region. In the
plot, one pattern is 160 μm in machining distance. (For interpretation of the
references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.)

Fig. 10. The plot of both global fitting line and local fitting line for (a) initial tip
machining parameters applied, this regression model was calibrated wear region and (b) tip failure region when the setpoint force and feed rate
and all the coefficients were determined, as shown in Eq. 2. were set as 1000 nN and 2 μm/s. The blue dots represent the measured pull-off
forces, the red lines represent the local fitting lines and the green lines represent
Finitial = slope *Dlinear +intercept the global fitting lines. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this
2.76
F figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
slope=0.019*⎛ set ⎞ *feed 0.23 + 0.0083
⎝ 1000 ⎠
intercept = 26.56 (2) the tips used in the experiments before machining.
Similarly, a regression model was developed and calibrated for the
As can be observed, the slope (or the wear rate) increases with the tip failure region, which is shown as Eq. 3.
larger setpoint force and feed rate, and the intercept is calculated as
26.56 nN, which is close to the average of measured pull-off forces for

54
X. Kong, et al. Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56

Table 2 indication of tip life for that specific machining condition. From the
The wear rate measured by the change rate of the pull-off forces (nN/ μm) for regression model, two lines were used to describe the evolvement of tip
the initial tip wear region and tip failure region under different machining wear along with the machined distance. The intersection point of the
conditions. two lines for both the initial tip wear region and tip failure region
Test # Setpoint force Feed rate Wear rate at initial Wear rate at failure provided an estimation of the transition point, from which the change
(nN) (μm/s) region (nN/μm) region (nN/μm) rate of the pull-off force increased rapidly. The specific machined linear
distance at the intersection point can also be calculated from Eqs. 2 and
1 500 1 0.0097 0.0292
2 500 2 0.0083 0.0426
3 when the calculated Ffailure equal to Finitial at each machining condi-
3 500 3 0.0185 0.0667 tion. Fig. 11 provided an example showing the lines from regression
4 1000 1 0.0209 0.0623 model (with goodness of fit R-squared at 0.93) and the transition point
5 1000 2 0.0289 0.1123 indicating the tip life when the setpoint force and feed rate were 1000
6 1000 3 0.0382 0.1379
nN and 2 μm/s respectively. Table 3 listed the estimated transition
7 1500 1 0.0691 0.1528
8 1500 2 0.0755 0.1971 point in both the machined distance and the number of the machined
9 1500 3 0.0819 0.2519 patterns. The machined feature depth around the transition point was
also listed in Table 3. Compared with the evolvement of the tip wear
from Figs. 6–8, these transition points from the regression model pro-
vided a rough estimation about of tip life about when to change the tip
to achieve acceptable machining performance.

6. Summary

In this work, the tip wear during the tip-based vibration-assisted

nanomachining process was systematically studied, and process models
were developed to understand the correlation between process condi-
tions and corresponding tip life. In addition to the SEM inspection, the
Fig. 11. Lines from regression model for the initial regions and tip failure re-
pull-off force between the AFM tip and the sample surface was applied
gion. The intersection of the two lines provide an estimation of the transition
point where the tip need to be changed. to measure the tip wear directly without unloading the tip from the
AFM and without interupting the machining process. To study the effect
of the machining parameters, such as setpoint force and feed rate, on
Table 3 the tip wear process, a full factorial design experiment was performed
The estimated transition point from the regression model and the feature depth
to study the effects of these machining parameters on the tip wear, and
at the transition point.
to develop the tip wear models to estimate the tip life and the machined
Test # Setpoint Feed Machined Number of Machined distance for the tip change. During the nanomachining process, three
force (nN) rate distance (μm) patterns feature depth
regions (i.e. initial tip wear region, transition region, and tip failure
(μm/s) machined (nm)
region) were observed as the tip was gradully worn off. The wear rate of
1 500 1 1328 8.3 5 the tip was higher with a larger setpoint force and a larger feed rate, as
2 500 2 1456 9.1 2 a larger machining load resulted in more severe wear of the tip used in
3 500 3 1504 9.4 1 the nanomachining. Moreover, the tip wear rate was much high at the
4 1000 1 2032 12.7 6
5 1000 2 1952 12.2 2
tip failure region than that from the initial tip wear region. Regression
6 1000 3 1872 11.7 1 models were developed to describe the tip wear behavior for the initial
7 1500 1 2624 16.4 4 tip wear region and the tip failure region, which provided a metho-
8 1500 2 2320 14.5 4 dology to estimate the tip life (i.e. when the tip needs to be changed).
9 1500 3 2208 13.8 5
The model of the tip wear and tip life can potentially provide usefully
guidelines for future proces planning and process optimization.
Ffailure = slope *Dlinear +intercept
1.78
Declaration of Competing Interest
F
slope=0.066*⎛ set ⎞ *feed 0.55 − 0.0089
⎝ 1000 ⎠ The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
1.72
F interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
intercept=-101.57*⎛ set ⎞ *feed 0.62 + 33.66
⎝ 1000 ⎠ (3) ence the work reported in this paper.

where Ffailure is the pull-off force measured during the tip failure region
(nN). Similar to the regression model for the initial tip wear region, the
slope (or wear rate) increases with the larger setpoint force or feed rate.
In Fig. 10, the pull-off forces were plotted versus the machined linear
distance when the setpoint force and feed set as 1000 nN and 2 μm/s
separately. As can be observed, for both the initial tip wear region and
tip failure region, the lines from the regression models fits well to the
changing trend of the measured pull-off force.
Using the regression model, the life of the tip can be roughly esti-
mated as well. For the tip-based nanomachining process, the patterns
machined during the initial tip wear region are usually acceptable,
while during the tip failure region, the tip rapidly wears out, and no
trenches can be reliably machined. To provide the guideline for the tip
change, we need to identify a machined distance where pattern quality
rapidly degrades, which is termed as the “transition point” and is an
Acknowledgement
This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation
under Grant Award NSF CMMI-1233176.
References
[1] Smith HI, Schattenburg ML. X-ray lithography from 500 to 30 nm: X-ray nano-
lithography. IBM J Res Dev 1993;37(3):319–29.
[2] Silverman JP. X-ray lithography: status, challenges, and outlook for 0.13 μm. J Vac
Sci Technol B Microelectron Nanometer Struct Process Meas Phenom
1997;15(6):2117–24.
[3] Griffiths SK. Fundamental limitations of LIGA x-ray lithography: sidewall offset,
slope and minimum feature size. J Micromechanics Microengineering
2004;14(7):999.
[4] Wagner C, Harned N. EUV lithography: Lithography gets extreme. Nat Photonics
2010;4(1):24.

55
X. Kong, et al.
[5] Tallents G, Wagenaars E, Pert G. Optical lithography: Lithography at EUV wave-
lengths. Nat Photonics 2010;4(12):809.
[6] Tseng AA, Chen K, Chen C, Ma KJ. Electron beam lithography in nanoscale fabri-
cation: recent development. IEEE Trans Electron Packag Manuf 2003;26(2):141–9.
[7] Chen Y. Nanofabrication by electron beam lithography and its applications: a re-
view. Microelectron Eng 2015;135:57–72.
[8] Chou SY, Krauss PR, Renstrom PJ. Nanoimprint lithography. J Vac Sci Technol B
Microelectron Nanometer Struct Process Meas Phenom 1996;14(6):4129–33.
[9] Guo L. Nanoimprint lithography: methods and material requirements. Adv Mater
2007;19(4):495–513.
[10] Pine RD, Zhu J, Xu F, Hong S, Mirkin CA. Dip-pen nanolithography. Science
1999;283(5402):661–3.
[11] Yongda Y, Sun T, Liang Y, Dong S. Investigation on AFM-based micro/nano-CNC
machining system. Int J Mach Tools Manuf 2007;47(11):1651–9.
[12] Göbel H, Von Blanckenhagen P. Atomic force microscope as a tool for metal surface
modifications. J Vac Sci Technol B Microelectron Nanometer Struct Process Meas
Phenom 1995;13(3):1247–51.
[13] Yan Y, Hu Z, Zhao X, Sun T, Dong S, Xiaodong L. Top‐down nanomechanical ma-
chining of three‐dimensional nanostructures by atomic force microscopy. Small
2010;6(6):724–8.
[14] Zhang L, Dong J. High-rate tunable ultrasonic force regulated nanomachining li-
thography with an atomic force microscope. Nanotechnology 2012;23(8):085303.
[15] Li Z, Dong J, Cohen PH. Material-insensitive feature depth control and machining
force reduction by ultrasonic vibration in AFM-Based nano-machining. IEEE Trans
Nanotechnol 2013;12(5):743–50.
[16] Gozen BA, Burak Ozdoganlar O. A rotating-tip-based mechanical nano-manu-
facturing process: nanomilling. Nanoscale Res Lett 2010;5(9):1403.
[17] Deng J, Zhang L, Dong J, Cohen PH. AFM-based 3D nanofabrication using ultra-
sonic vibration assisted nanomachining. J Manuf Process 2016;24:195–202.
[18] Deng J, Dong J, Cohen PH. Development and characterization of ultrasonic vibra-
tion assisted nanomachining process for three-dimensional nanofabrication. IEEE
Trans Nanotechnol 2018;17(3):559–66.
[19] Kong X, Dong J, Cohen PH. Modeling of the dynamic machining force of vibration-
assisted nanomachining process. J Manuf Process 2017;28:101–10.
[20] Kong X, Cohen PH, Dong J. Predictive modeling of feature dimension for tip-based
nano machining process. J Manuf Process 2016;24:338–45.
[21] Özel T, Karpat Y. Predictive modeling of surface roughness and tool wear in hard
turning using regression and neural networks. Int J Mach Tools Manuf
2005;45(4–5):467–79.
56
Journal of Manufacturing Processes 50 (2020) 47–56
[22] Iliescu D, Gehin D, Gutierrez ME, Girot F. Modeling and tool wear in drilling of
CFRP. Int J Mach Tools Manuf 2010;50(2):204–13.
[23] Gu J, Barber G, Tung S, Ren-Jyh G. Tool life and wear mechanism of uncoated and
coated milling inserts. Wear 1999;225:273–84.
[24] Rawat S, Attia H. Wear mechanisms and tool life management of WC–Co drills
during dry high speed drilling of woven carbon fibre composites. Wear 2009;267(5-
8):1022–30.
[25] Tansel IN, Arkan TT, Bao WY, Mahendrakar N, Shisler B, Smith D, et al. Tool wear
estimation in micro-machining.: part I: tool usage–cutting force relationship. Int J
Mach Tools Manuf 2000;40(4):599–608.
[26] Remadna M, Rigal JF. Evolution during time of tool wear and cutting forces in the
case of hard turning with CBN inserts. J Mater Process Technol
2006;178(1–3):67–75.
[27] Yen Y-C, Söhner J, Lilly B, Altan T. Estimation of tool wear in orthogonal cutting
using the finite element analysis. J Mater Process Technol 2004;146(1):82–91.
[28] Karagüzel U, Uysal E, Budak E, Bakkal M. Analytical modeling of turn-milling
process geometry, kinematics and mechanics. Int J Mach Tools Manuf
2015;91:24–33.
[29] Rojek J. Discrete element thermomechanical modelling of rock cutting with va-
luation of tool wear. Comput Part Mech 2014;1(1):71–84.
[30] Kolahdoozan M, Azimifar F, Yazdi SR. Finite Element Investigation and
Optimization of Tool Wear in Drilling Process of Difficult-to-Cut Nickel-Based
Superalloy using Response Surface Methodology. Int J Adv Des Manuf Technol
2014;7(2).
[31] Gozen BA, Burak Ozdoganlar O. Wear of ultrananocrystalline diamond AFM tips
during mechanical nanomanufacturing by nanomilling. Wear 2014;317(1-2):39–55.
[32] Chung K-H. Wear characteristics of atomic force microscopy tips: A review. Int J
Precis Eng Manuf 2014;15(10):2219–30.
[33] Islam S, Ibrahim R. Mechanism of abrasive wear in nanomachining. Tribol Lett
2011;42(3):275.
[34] Gnecco E, Bennewitz R, Socoliuc A, Meyer E. Friction and wear on the atomic scale.
Wear 2003;254(9):859–62.
[35] Cheng K, Luo X, Ward R, Holt R. Modeling and simulation of the tool wear in
nanometric cutting. Wear 2003;255(7-12):1427–32.
[36] Skårman B, Wallenberg LR, Jacobsen SN, Helmersson U, Thelander C. Evaluation of
intermittent contact mode AFM probes by HREM and using atomically sharp CeO2
ridges as tip characterizer. Langmuir 2000;16(15):6267–77.
[37] Gotsmann B, Lantz MA. Atomistic wear in a single asperity sliding contact. Phys Rev
Lett 2008;101(12):125501.