2009/07/28 by Gunther Richter, Karla Hillerich, Daniel S. Gianola +3 · 1 citation
Engineering · Materials Science · Chemistry · #Nanowire Synthesis and Applications #Microstructure and mechanical properties #Metal and Thin Film Mechanics #Materials science #Nucleation #Focused ion beam #Dislocation #Transmission electron microscopy #Nanomaterials #Scanning electron microscope #Ultimate tensile strength #Crystal (programming language) #Single crystal #Fabrication #Nanotechnology #Chemical vapor deposition #Molecular beam epitaxy #Crystallographic defect #Composite material #Epitaxy #Crystallography #Ion #Chemistry
paper · doi:10.1021/nl9015107
openalex publication_date 2009/07/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
The strength of metal crystals is reduced below the theoretical value by the presence of dislocations or by flaws that allow easy nucleation of dislocations. A straightforward method to minimize the number of defects and flaws and to presumably increase its strength is to increase the crystal quality or to reduce the crystal size. Here, we describe the successful fabrication of high aspect ratio nanowhiskers from a variety of face-centered cubic metals using a high temperature molecular beam epitaxy method. The presence of atomically smooth, faceted surfaces and absence of dislocations is confirmed using transmission electron microscopy investigations. Tensile tests performed in situ in a focused-ion beam scanning electron microscope on Cu nanowhiskers reveal strengths close to the theoretical upper limit and confirm that the properties of nanomaterials can be engineered by controlling defect and flaw densities.