Effect of a high density of stacking faults on the Young's modulus of GaAs nanowires

Stacking faults (SFs) are commonly observed crystalline defects in III-V semiconductor nanowires (NWs) that affect a variety of physical properties. Understanding the effect of SFs on NW mechanical properties is critical to NW applications in nanodevices. In this study, the Young's moduli of GaAs NWs with two distinct structures, defect-free single crystalline wurtzite (WZ) and highly defective wurtzite containing a high density of SFs (WZ-SF), are investigated using combined in situ compression transmission electron microscopy and finite element analysis. The Young's moduli of both WZ and WZ-SF GaAs NWs were found to increase with decreasing diameter due to the increasing volume fraction of the native oxide shell. The presence of a high density of SFs was further found to increase the Young's modulus by 13%. This stiffening effect of SFs is attributed to the change in the interatomic bonding configuration at the SFs.