To achieve the ductile lapping of a single crystal sapphire, micro/nano mechanic characteristics of the sapphire (0001) plane were measured by nanoindentation and nanoscratch methods. The indentation model of single cone abrasive grain was proposed and then critical force conditions were deduced during ductile lapping process. Experimental studies were conducted for the single crystal sapphire based on the diamond abrasive grain charging into a synthetic tin plate, and characteristics of ductile lapped surface were measured by a NT9800 white light interferometer, a Scan Emission Microscopy(SEM) and a Transmission Electron Microscopy(TEM). Experimental results show that nanoindentation and nanoscratch methods can provide processing parameters for the ductile lapping of single crystal sapphires, and its critical depth of pile-up is around 100 nm for sapphire nanoindentation. The ductile lapping of the single crystal sapphire can be implemented by charging into diamond abrasive grains and selecting proper loads and the optimal load for ductile lapping is 21 kPa. After ductile lapping, the surface scratch depth of single crystal sapphire shows a smaller dispersion and the dislocation and slip are formed on the lapped surface.