Mechanical properties of vertically aligned single-crystalline silicon nanowire arrays

Single-crystalline p-type silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays have been formed by electroless metal deposition on a silicon wafer piece in an ionic Ag/fluorhydric acid (HF) solution through selective etching. They display mechanical properties that are different from those of both bulk silicon and single SiNWs. As any practical application of these materials is likely to involve a large number of nanowires in close proximity to each other, it is necessary to understand the mechanical properties of SiNW arrays. In this work, as a first step to characterize their mechanical properties, the buckling instabilities of the surfaces formed by vertically aligned SiNWs have been studied by nanoindentation tests.