An open-source platform to study uniaxial stress effects on nanoscale devices

TL;DR

This paper introduces an open-source platform for studying how uniaxial stress affects nanoscale devices through electrical and optical measurements, enabling systematic exploration of strain effects in nanotechnology.

Contribution

The authors developed and shared an automated, open-source measurement platform for characterizing nanoscale devices under uniaxial stress, combining electrical transport and spectroscopy techniques.

Findings

Demonstrated the platform by measuring piezo-resistance of InAs nanowires.

Compared the platform's performance with existing methods, showing advantages.

Provided detailed design and software for community use.

Abstract

We present an automatic measurement platform that enables the characterization of nanodevices by electrical transport and optical spectroscopy as a function of uniaxial stress. We provide insights into and detailed descriptions of the mechanical device, the substrate design and fabrication, and the instrument control software, which is provided under open-source license. The capability of the platform is demonstrated by characterizing the piezo-resistance of an InAs nanowire device using a combination of electrical transport and Raman spectroscopy. The advantages of this measurement platform are highlighted by comparison with state-of-the-art piezo-resistance measurements in InAs nanowires. We envision that the systematic application of this methodology will provide new insights into the physics of nanoscale devices and novel materials for electronics, and thus contribute to the assessment of the potential of strain as a technology booster for nanoscale electronics.