Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2011
Nanobelts are a group of materials that have a rectangle-like cross section with typical widths of several hundred nanometers, width-to-thickness ratios of 5 to 10, and lengths of hundreds of micron meters. In this paper, nanoindentations were made on individual ZnO, SnO2 nanobelts and (0001) bulk ZnO by using AFM and Hysitron Triboscope indenters. It was shown that the indentation size effect was still obvious for the indentation depth under 50 nm. It is also demonstrated that nanomaching is possible on nanobelt using AFM tip.