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Updated: Jun 28, 2026

A Fabrication Method for Highly Stretchable Conductors with Silver Nanowires
Published on: January 21, 2016
On the elastic modulus of metallic nanowires
Matthew T McDowell1, Austin M Leach, Ken Gall
1School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
Abstract:
Previous atomistic simulations and experiments have attributed size effects in the elastic modulus of Ag nanowires to surface energy effects inherent to metallic surfaces. However, differences in experimental and computational trends analyzed here imply that other factors are controlling experimentally observed modulus changes. This study utilizes atomistic simulations to determine how strongly nanowire geometry and surface structure influence nanowire elastic modulus. The results demonstrate that although these factors do influence the elastic modulus of Ag nanowires to some extent, they alone are insufficient to explain current experimental trends in nanowire modulus with decreasing dimensional scale. Future work needs to be done to determine whether other factors, such as surface contaminants or oxide layers, contribute to the experimentally observed elastic modulus increase.
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