Because all scratching tests are carried out on the soft aluminum alloy, the rigid diamond tip exhibits negligible wear. After machining, the sample is imaged by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) immediately to observe the morphology of the chips formed in the scratching process. Before imaging by AFM, the machined sample is washed SC75741 clinical trial in alcohol solution ultrasonically for about 10 min to remove the chips. Then the fabricated region is scanned by a silicon nitride tip with a radius of less than 10 nm to obtain the 3-D topography

of the Selleck Emricasan nanochannels. Figure 1 Schematic of the nanochannel machining process. ( a ) Schematic of the AFM-based nanomachining system. ( b ) The geometry of the diamond tip. ( c ) The tip scanning trajectory. ( d ) Two relative moving conditions. Based on this modified system, a novel and simple nanomachining method combining the scanning movement of AFM piezoceramics tube (PZT) with the rectilinear movement of the high-precision stage is realized. Utilizing this method, a nanochannel with ladder nanostructure at the bottom can be achieved by continuous scanning with a fixed scan size. The machining procedures are described as follows: (1) The AFM system is set to contact mode, and the diamond AFM tip approaches the sample surface at a normal load which can make the tip press

into the sample plastically. This normal load is used to control the depth of the nanochannels.   (2) The AFM is XAV-939 purchase controlled to scan with a setting scan size regularly. As shown in Figure 1c, the AFM tip moves from the initial position (denoted by 1) to the end position (denoted by 2) to achieve one scanning cycle. After completing one scan, the AFM tip returns to the Evodiamine initial position (denoted by 1) to start another new scan operation. This process is repeated until the machining process is finished. Meanwhile, as shown in Figure 1a, the X direction high-precision

stage moves at a low velocity (V stage) along the slow-scanning axis of the tip continuously. Two conditions can be generated: the stage moves in the same direction with the tip feeding velocity (V tip); the stage moves in the opposite direction to the tip feeding velocity (V tip). The scan size of AFM and the displacement moved by the high-precision stage are to control the width and the length of the nanochannel, respectively. Meanwhile, the dimension and the structure of the ladder machined at the bottom of the nanochannel are determined by the matching relationship between V tip and V stage, which will be described in detail in the following sections.   (3) After one nanochannel is obtained, the AFM tip is lifted and the high-precision stage in the Y direction (shown in Figure 1a) is controlled to move to the next position. Another nanochannel can be machined with the same procedure. Thus, the channel arrays can be achieved.