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The behavior of ZnO nanowires under uniaxial loading is characterized by means of a numerical model that accounts for all coupled mechanical, electrical, and thermal effects. The paper shows that thermal effects in the nanowires may greatly impact the predicted performance of piezoelectric and piezotronic nanodevices. The pyroelectric effect introduces new equivalent volumic charge in the body of the nanowire and surface charges at the boundaries, where Kapitza resistances are located, that act together with the piezoelectric charges to improve the predicted performance. It is shown that the proposed model is able to reproduce several effects experimentally observed by other research groups, and is a promising tool for the design of ultra-high efficient nanodevices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) has been widely used for creating nanoscale oxide lines on various material surfaces. The assembling technique used for overlapping an array of these oxide lines into a uniform oxide layer is analytically investigated and experimentally verified. The experimental data of the oxide lines induced at different scanning speeds are analytically correlated to provide the basic formula for the assembling technique. The superposition principle is then applied for simulating the assembling process to extract the criteria for assembling a uniform layer. Experiments have been conducted to verify the reliability of the uniformity criteria analytically obtained and the feasibility of the assembling technique developed. Indeed, a uniform oxide layer can be precisely assembled by following the uniformity criteria developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]