TY - JOUR A1 - Buchwald, Jörg A1 - Sarmanova, Marina A1 - Rauschenbach, Bernd A1 - Mayr, Stefan G. T1 - Nanometer-resolved mechanical properties around GaN crystal surface steps JF - Beilstein Journal of Nanotechnology PY - 2014/// VL - 5 SP - 2164 EP - 2170 SN - 2190-4286 DO - 10.3762/bjnano.5.225 PB - Beilstein-Institut JA - Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. UR - https://doi.org/10.3762/bjnano.5.225 KW - finite elements KW - gallium nitride KW - indentation KW - mechanical properties KW - molecular dynamics KW - nanostructures N2 - The mechanical properties of surfaces and nanostructures deviate from their bulk counterparts due to surface stress and reduced dimensionality. Experimental indentation-based techniques present the challenge of measuring these effects, while avoiding artifacts caused by the measurement technique itself. We performed a molecular dynamics study to investigate the mechanical properties of a GaN step of only a few lattice constants step height and scrutinized its applicability to indentation experiments using a finite element approach (FEM). We show that the breakdown of half-space symmetry leads to an “artificial” reduction of the elastic properties of comparable lateral dimensions which overlays the effect of surface stress. Contact resonance atomic force microscopy (CR-AFM) was used to compare the simulation results with experiments. ER -