Low-Cycle Fatigue Testing of Ni Nanowires Based on a Micro-Mechanical Device

Despite extensive research on the mechanical properties of one-dimensional (1-D) nanomaterials such as nanowires and nanotubes in the past two decades, experimental data on the fatigue behavior of 1-D building blocks are still very limited. Here, we demonstrate the first quantitative in situ tensile fatigue testing of individual nanowires inside a high-resolution scanning electron microscope (SEM), based on the nanoindenter-assisted “push-to-pull” dynamic tensile straining mechanism. With the robust micro-mechanical devices and independent quantitative nanoindenter for actuation and force sensing, we achieved both stress- and strain-controlled cyclic tensile loading on nanowire samples with variable loading frequencies up to 10 Hz, and demonstrated the low-cycle fatigue behavior of pristine single crystalline nickel (Ni) nanowires.