Mechanical Properties of Crystalline Silicon Carbide Nanowires

In this paper, the mechanical properties of crystalline silicon carbide nanowires, synthesized with a catalyst-free chemical vapor deposition method, were characterized with nanoscale tensile testing and mechanical resonance testing methods inside a scanning electron microscope. Tensile testing of individual silicon carbide nanowire was performed to determine the tensile properties of the material including the tensile strength, failure strain and Young's modulus. The silicon carbide nanowires were also excited to mechanical resonance in the scanning electron microscope vacuum chamber using mechanical excitation and electrical excitation methods, and the corresponding resonance frequencies were used to determine the Young's modulus of the material according to the simple beam theory. The Young's modulus values from tensile tests were in good agreement with the ones obtained from the mechanical resonance tests.