Atom Diffusion and Evaporation of Free-Ended Amorphous SiOx Nanowires: Nanocurvature Effect and Beam-Induced Athermal Activation Effect

Arresting effects of nanocurvature and electron beam-induced athermal activation on the structure changes at nanoscale of free-ended amorphous SiOx nanowire were demonstrated. It was observed that under in situ uniform electron beam irradiation in transmission electron microscope, the near surface atoms at the most curved free end of the nanowire preferentially vaporized or diffused to the less curved wire sidewall. The processing resulted in an intriguing axial shrinkage and an abnormal radial expansion of the wire. It was also observed that with the beam energy deposition rate being lowered, although both the diffusion and the evaporation slowed down, the processing transferred from an evaporation-dominated status to a diffusion-dominated status. These results are crucial not only to the fundamental understanding but also to the technical controlling of the electron beam-induced structure change at nanoscale or nanoprocessing of low dimensional nanostructures.