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Large anelasticity and associated energy dissipation in single-crystalline nanowires

Nature Nanotechnology volume 10, pages 687–691 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Anelastic materials exhibit gradual full recovery of deformation once a load is removed, leading to dissipation of internal mechanical energy1. As a consequence, anelastic materials are being investigated for mechanical damping applications. At the macroscopic scale, however, anelasticity is usually very small or negligible, especially in single-crystalline materials2,3. Here, we show that single-crystalline ZnO and p-doped Si nanowires can exhibit anelastic behaviour that is up to four orders of magnitude larger than the largest anelasticity observed in bulk materials, with a timescale on the order of minutes. In situ scanning electron microscope tests of individual nanowires showed that, on removal of the bending load and instantaneous recovery of the elastic strain, a substantial portion of the total strain gradually recovers with time. We attribute this large anelasticity to stress-gradient-induced migration of point defects, as supported by electron energy loss spectroscopy measurements and also by the fact that no anelastic behaviour could be observed under tension. We model this behaviour through a theoretical framework by point defect diffusion under a high strain gradient and short diffusion distance, expanding the classic Gorsky theory. Finally, we show that ZnO single-crystalline nanowires exhibit a high damping merit index, suggesting that crystalline nanowires with point defects are promising materials for energy damping applications.

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Figure 1: In situ SEM bending test of an individual ZnO nanowire.
Figure 2: Recovery and damping behaviours of a ZnO nanowire.
Figure 3: Microstructure and relationship between oxygen difference and bending strain for a ZnO nanowire.
Figure 4: Mechanical behaviour of p-doped Si nanowires under bending and compression.

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Acknowledgements

Y.Z. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) under awards CMMI-1030637 and 1301193, and the use of the Analytical Instrumentation Facility at North Carolina State University, which is supported by the State of North Carolina and the NSF. H.G. acknowledges support from the NSF through award CMMI-1161749 and the MRSEC Program through award DMR-0520651 at Brown University. C.M. acknowledges a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council (no. 2011683006). Y.Z. thanks Y. Gu and W. Lu for providing nanowire samples and for discussions about the defect structures in these nanowires.

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Author notes

  1. Guangming Cheng and Chunyang Miao: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, USA

    Guangming Cheng, Qingquan Qin, Feng Xu & Yong Zhu

  2. School of Engineering, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912, USA

    Chunyang Miao, Hamed Haftbaradaran & Huajian Gao

  3. Institute of Nano Science, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

    Chunyang Miao

  4. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina 27695, USA

    Jing Li, Elizabeth C. Dickey & Yong Zhu

Authors
  1. Guangming Cheng
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  5. Feng Xu
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Contributions

Y.Z. conceived the idea. Y.Z. and H.G. designed the experiments and modelling. G.C., Q.Q. and F.X. performed the in situ mechanical testing. J.L., G.C. and E.C.D. performed EELS characterization. C.M. and H.H. performed the modelling and simulations. G.C., C.M., E.C.D., H.G. and Y.Z. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Huajian Gao or Yong Zhu.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Cheng, G., Miao, C., Qin, Q. et al. Large anelasticity and associated energy dissipation in single-crystalline nanowires. Nature Nanotech 10, 687–691 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2015.135

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