An experimental study on cutting amorphous alloy at nanometer scale is conducted by applying the principle and technology of scanni ng probe microscope(SPM). It is revealed from the experiments that cutting insi de SPM is an excellent and direct way to research the material removal process a t small size. Based on the experimental results,the chip formation mechanism fo r the cutting of amorphous alloy is discussed. It is found that the deformation along the direction of chip flow occurs ahead of the appearance of localized shear,and a simplified geometrical model is proposed to illustrate the deformat ion.