Buckling and elastic stability of vertical ZnO nanotubes and nanorods

Buckling and elastic stability study of vertical well aligned ZnO nanorods grown on Si substrate and ZnO nanotubes etched from the same nanorods was done quantitatively by nanoindentation technique. The critical load, modulus of elasticity, and flexibility of the ZnO nanorods and nanotubes were observed and we compared these properties for the two nanostructures. It was observed that critical load of nanorods ( 2890 μ N ) was approximately five times larger than the critical load of the nanotubes ( 687 μ N ) . It was also observed that ZnO nanotubes were approximately five times more flexible ( 0.32 nm / μ N ) than the nanorods ( 0.064 nm / μ N ) . We also calculated the buckling energies of the ZnO nanotubes and nanorods from the force displacement curves. The ratio of the buckling energies was also close to unity due to the increase/decrease of five times for one parameter (critical load) and increase/decrease of five times for the other parameter (displacement) of the two samples. We calculated critical load, critical stress, strain, and Young modulus of elasticity of single ZnO nanorod and nanotube. The high flexibility of the nanotubes and high elasticity of the ZnO nanorods can be used to enhance the efficiency of piezoelectric nanodevices. We used the Euler buckling model and shell cylindrical model for the analysis of the mechanical properties of ZnO nanotubes and nanorods.