Electron beam-induced athermal nanowelding of crossing SiOx amorphous nanowires

Nanowelding of two crossing amorphous SiOx nanowires induced by uniform electron beam irradiation at room temperature was demonstrated in an in situ transmission electron microscope. It was observed that, under the electron beam irradiation, the amorphous nanowires became unstable driven by nanocurvature non-uniformly distributed over the nanowire surface centered around the crossing site of the nanowires. Such an instability of the nanowires could give rise to an athermal fast and massive migration of atoms nearby the surface centered around the crossing site, and thus the two crossing nanowires become gradually welded. The existing knock-on mechanism and molecular dynamics simulations seem inadequate to explain the observed athermal migration of the surface atoms and the resulting structural change at the nanoscale. To elucidate the observed phenomena of nanowelding, a mechanism of athermal atomic diffusion driven by the effects of the nanocurvature as well as the athermal activation of the electron beam was proposed and simulated. The simulation revealed the detailed process of the nanowelding and corresponding effects of the nanocurvature and athermal activation of the electron beam. In doing so, the nanowelding parameters became predictable, controllable, and tunable to a desired welding effect.