Length effects on tensile behavior of Au-Ag heterostructured nanowires with the load on different ends: A molecular dynamics study

The tensile process of nanowires (NWs), in which one end of a NW is fixed, and the load is applied to the other end, is investigated via molecular dynamics (MD). Here, we pay attention to length-dependent mechanical properties of heterostructured Au-Ag NWs under the above tensile form. It was discovered that all the samples became stronger except for the shortest one with the length of 4 nm and the load on the Ag end with the decrease of length. Meanwhile, we found that all samples with the load on Ag ends outperformed the same NWs with the load on Au ends in terms of yield strengths and elongations. Meanwhile, the NWs with the load on Ag ends may exhibit a better performance in terms of conductivity. A reasonable analysis from the perspective of radial distribution function has been developed to explain above phenomena. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.