Nanowire Breakup via a Morphological Instability Enhanced by Surface Electromigration

TL;DR

This paper models how surface electromigration causes nanowires to break up into particles, showing that higher surface roughness accelerates this process and results in more particles.

Contribution

It introduces a continuum model for nanowire evolution under electric fields, highlighting the impact of surface roughness and electromigration on breakup dynamics.

Findings

Electromigration accelerates nanowire breakup.

Greater surface roughness shortens breakup time.

Higher roughness leads to more particles.

Abstract

Using a recent continuum model of a single-crystal nanowire morphological evolution in the applied axial electric field, an axisymmetric evolution of a microscopically rough nanowire surface is computed. Morphological evolution results in a wire breakup into a cylindrical segments (particles). Breakup time and the number of particles are characterized for various levels of the radial and axial surface roughness. It is shown that electromigration and larger surface roughness lead to a shorter breakup time and the increased number of particles.