Abstract
This paper describes the effects of specimen size, focused ion beam (FIB) damage, and ultra-high vacuum (UHV) annealing on the mechanical properties of silicon (Si) nanowires (NWs) evaluated by tensile testing in-situ SEM. Si NWs were made from silicon-on-nothing (SON) membranes that were produced by deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) fabrication and UHV annealing. FIB system's probe manipulation and film deposition functions were used to directly bond them onto the sample stage of a tensile test device and to fabricate Si NWs. The mean Young's modulus and strength of FIB-damaged NWs were found to be 129.1GPa and 5.6GPa, respectively. After annealing in UHV, the Young's modulus was increased to 168.4GPa, whereas the strength was decreased due to morphology degradation.
