Electrical transport in deformed nanostrips: electrical signature of reversible mechanical failure

Abstract

We calculate the electrical conductivity of a thin crystalline strip of atoms confined within a quasi one dimensional channel of fixed width. The conductivity shows anomalous behavior as the strip is deformed under tensile loading. Beyond a critical strain, the solid fails by the nucleation of alternating bands of solid and {\em smectic} like phases accompanied by a jump in the conductivity. Since the failure of the strip in this system is known to be reversible, the onductivity anomaly may have practical use as a sensitive strain transducer.

arXiv comment8 pages, 3 figures, communicated for publication in EPL

References in corpus (3)

• Quantum properties of atomic-sized conductors
• Constrained deformation of a confined solid: a strain induced crystal-smectic transition
• Short-time behaviour of the two-dimensional hard-disk model

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Anomalous structural and mechanical properties of solids confined in quasi one dimensional strips
• Heat conduction through a trapped solid: effect of structural changes on thermal conductance
• Heat conduction in a confined solid strip: Response to external strain
• Novel Fluctuations at a Constrained Liquid-Solid Interface
• Recursive approach to study transport properties of atomic wire