Mapping the local elastic properties of nanostructured germanium surfaces: from nanoporous sponges to self-organized nanodots

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Due to their reduced dimensions, the mechanical properties of nanostructures may differ substantially from those of bulk materials. Quantifying and understanding the nanomechanical properties of individual nanostructures is thus of tremendous importance both from a fundamental and a technological point of view. Here we employ a recently introduced atomic force microscopy mode, i.e., peak-force quantitative nanomechanical imaging, to map the local elastic properties of nanostructured germanium surfaces. This imaging mode allows the quantitative determination of the Young’s modulus with nanometer resolution. Heavy-ion irradiation was used to fabricate different self-organized nanostructures on germanium surfaces. Depending on the sample temperature during irradiation, nanoporous sponge-like structures and hexagonally ordered nanodots are obtained. The sponge-like germanium surface is found to exhibit a surprisingly low Young’s modulus well below 10 GPa, which furthermore depends on...



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