Evaluation on Tensile Property of Single Crystalline Gold Nanorod with Single Slip Orientation

Abstract We investigate the tensile properties of a single crystal gold nanorod with a square cross-section of 190 nm x 190 nm. A gold nanorod, which has a single slip orientation, is mounted on a lozenge-shaped silicon frame and is pulled by a compressive load on the top face of the frame. Although the applied load increases linearly in the early stage of deformation, it drops suddenly at a certain displacement. In-situ TEM observations indicate that the rapid drop is due to crystallographic slip generation within the nanorod. The critical resolved shear stress on the active slip system at yielding is evaluated to be 325.8 MPa, which is about 600 times larger than that of the bulk counterpart. After necking, which occurs regardless of the crystal structure, the nanorod is fractured.