PNNL

Abstract

Molecular dynamics simulations with the Tersoff potential were used to study the response of twinned SiC nanowires under tensile and compressive strains. The critical strain of the twinned nanowires can be enhanced by twin-stacking faults, and their critical strains are larger than those of perfect nanowires with the same diameters. Under axial tensile strain, the bonds of the nanowires are just stretched before failure. The failure behavior is found to depend on the twin segment thickness and the diameter of the nanowires. An atomic chain is observed for the thin nanowires with small twin segment thickness under tension strain. Under axial compressive strain, the collapse of the twinned SiC nanowires exhibits two differently failure modes, depending on the length and diameter of the nanowires, i.e. shell buckling for short length nanowires and columnar buckling for longer length nanowires.