Structures comprising single-crystal, iron-carbon-based nanowires encapsulated by multiwall carbon nanotubes self-organize on inert substrates exposed to the products of ferrocene pyrolysis at high temperature. The most commonly observed encapsulated phases are Fe3C, α-Fe, and γ-Fe. The observation of anomalously long-period lattice spacings in these nanowires has caused confusion since reflections from lattice spacings of ≥0.4 nm are kinematically forbidden for Fe3C, most of the rarely observed, less stable carbides, α-Fe, and γ-Fe. Through high-resolution electron microscopy, selective area electron diffraction, and electron energy loss spectroscopy we demonstrate that the observed long-period lattice spacings of 0.49, 0.66, and 0.44 nm correspond to reflections from the (100), (010), and (001) planes of orthorhombic Fe3C (space group Pnma). Observation of these forbidden reflections results from dynamic scattering of the incident beam as first observed in bulk Fe3C crystals. With small amounts of beam tilt these reflections can have significant intensities for crystals containing glide planes such as Fe3C with space groups Pnma or Pbmn.

X-ray diffraction, selected area electron diffraction, and high-resolution transmission electron microscope techniques were used to investigate the crystalline structures of one-dimensional tungsten oxide nanowires prepared by the hydrothermal method. The as-synthesized products were found to exhibit increasing crystallinity with increasing reaction time, and tungsten oxide nanowires have crystalline defects, including stacking faults, dislocations, and vacancies. The results on the crystal defects help us to obtain a better understanding of the temperature-dependent morphological evolution of the ultrathin nanowires synthesized under different thermal processes.

In the present study, an enriched continuum mechanics framework is employed to study thesurface effects on bending behavior of silver nanowires (NWs) resting on elasticsubstrate. The Timoshenko beam theory and the Laplace-Young equation are employed toinvestigate static behavior of silver NWs lying on Winkler-Pasternak elastic substrate.Three types of boundary conditions are considered as doubly simply supported (S-S), doublyclamped (C-C) and cantilevered (C-F). Analytical solutions are obtained for NWs withsurface crystallographic orientation of [001] subjected to a concentrated external force.By defining different normalized contact stiffness, extensive numerical results arecarried out to study the influence of effective parameters such as substrate, surface,aspect ratio (L/D) and diameter onthe stiffness of NWs. According to the obtained results, the effect of surface and itsrate of variation on stiffness of NWs lying on Winkler and Winkler-Pasternak elasticfoundation models are more significant in (C-F) type of boundary condition compared to theNWs without foundation. By increasing the modulus of elastic substrate, the effect ofshear deformation increases which it is more considerable in (C-C) and (S-S) NWs restingon the Winkler-Pasternak and Winkler substrate models, respectively.

The ability to prepare multiple cross-section transmission electron microscope (XTEM) samples from one XTEM sample of specific sub-10 nm features was demonstrated. Sub-10 nm diameter Si nanowire (NW) devices were initially cross-sectioned using a dual-beam focused ion beam system in a direction running parallel to the device channel. From this XTEM sample, both low- and high-resolution transmission electron microscope (TEM) images were obtained from six separate, specific site Si NW devices. The XTEM sample was then re-sectioned in four separate locations in a direction perpendicular to the device channel: 90° from the original XTEM sample direction. Three of the four XTEM samples were successfully sectioned in the gate region of the device. From these three samples, low- and high-resolution TEM images of the Si NW were taken and measurements of the NW diameters were obtained. This technique demonstrated the ability to obtain high-resolution TEM images in directions 90° from one another of multiple, specific sub-10 nm features that were spaced 1.1 μm apart.