Fracture strength and Young’s modulus of ZnO nanowires

The fracture strength of ZnO nanowires vertically grown on sapphire substrates was measured in tensile and bending experiments. Nanowires with diameters between 60 and 310 nm and a typical length of 2 µm were manipulated with an atomic force microscopy tip mounted on a nanomanipulator inside a scanning electron microscope. The fracture strain of (7.7 ± 0.8)% measured in the bending test was found to be close to the theoretical limit of 10% and revealed a strength about twice as high as in the tensile test. From the tensile experiments, the Young’s modulus could be measured to be within 30% of that of bulk ZnO, contrary to the lower values found in the literature.