title: Effect of a High Density of Stacking Faults on the Young's Modulus of GaAs Nanowires.
abstract: Stacking faults (SFs) are commonly observed crystalline defects in III-V semiconductor nanowires (NWs) that affect a variety of physical properties. Understanding the effect of SFs on NW mechanical properties is critical to NW applications in nanodevices. In this study, the Young's moduli of GaAs NWs with two distinct structures, defect-free single crystalline wurtzite (WZ) and highly defective wurtzite containing a high density of SFs (WZ-SF), are investigated using combined in situ compression transmission electron microscopy and finite element analysis. The Young's moduli of both WZ and WZ-SF GaAs NWs were found to increase with decreasing diameter due to the increasing volume fraction of the native oxide shell. The presence of a high density of SFs was further found to increase the Young's modulus by 13%. This stiffening effect of SFs is attributed to the change in the interatomic bonding configuration at the SFs.
authors.forename: Yujie
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, Research School of Physics and Engineering, The Australian National University , Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Tim
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Burgess
authors.forename: Xianghai
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: An
authors.forename: Yiu-Wing
authors.initials: YW
authors.lastname: Mai
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, Research School of Physics and Engineering, The Australian National University , Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: H Hoe
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Tan
authors.affiliation: Materials Engineering and Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis, The University of Queensland , St. Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Jin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Zou
authors.forename: Simon P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Ringer
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Materials Engineering, Research School of Physics and Engineering, The Australian National University , Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Chennupati
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Jagadish
authors.forename: Xiaozhou
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liao
keywords: GaAs nanowires; Young’s modulus; in situ deformation; stacking faults; transmission electron microscopy