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Effects of mechanical strain on optical properties of ZnO nanowire

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Effects of mechanical strain on optical properties of ZnO nanowire
Ali Vazinishayan, Dasaradha Rao Lambada, Shuming Yang, Guofeng Zhang, Biyao Cheng, Yonas Tesfaye
Woldu, Shareen Shafique, Yiming Wang, and Ndahimana Anastase

Citation: AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018);

View online: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5016995
View Table of Contents: http://aip.scitation.org/toc/adv/8/2
Published by the American Institute of Physics
 AIP ADVANCES 8, 025306 (2018)

Effects of mechanical strain on optical properties

of ZnO nanowire
Ali Vazinishayan, Dasaradha Rao Lambada, Shuming Yang,a
Guofeng Zhang, Biyao Cheng, Yonas Tesfaye Woldu, Shareen Shafique,
Yiming Wang, and Ndahimana Anastase
State Key Laboratory for Manufacturing System Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University,
Xi’an 710049, China
(Received 23 November 2017; accepted 30 January 2018; published online 8 February 2018)

The main objective of this study is to investigate the influences of mechanical strain on
optical properties of ZnO nanowire (NW) before and after embedding ZnS nanowire
into the ZnO nanowire, respectively. For this work, commercial finite element model-
ing (FEM) software package ABAQUS and three-dimensional (3D) finite-difference
time-domain (FDTD) methods were utilized to analyze the nonlinear mechanical
behavior and optical properties of the sample, respectively. Likewise, in this structure
a single focused Gaussian beam with wavelength of 633 nm was used as source. The
dimensions of ZnO nanowire were defined to be 12280 nm in length and 103.2 nm
in diameter with hexagonal cross-section. In order to investigate mechanical prop-
erties, three-point bending technique was adopted so that both ends of the model
were clamped with mid-span under loading condition and then the physical defor-
mation model was imported into FDTD solutions to study optical properties of
ZnO nanowire under mechanical strain. Moreover, it was found that increase in the
strain due to the external load induced changes in reflectance, transmittance and
absorptance, respectively. © 2018 Author(s). All article content, except where oth-
erwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.5016995

I. INTRODUCTION
Nanowires (NWs) have attracted great attention due to their unique properties, such as anisotropic
structures, small diameter and large in surface to volume ratio; hence, they have been utilized in many
different applications, including electrical, thermoelectric, optical, chemical and biochemical sensing
devices and magnetic.1 Among various kinds of nanowires, ZnO nanowires have been exhibited
significant properties like: (i) a wide direct band gap (3.37 eV) at room temperature, (ii) a high
exciton binding energy (60 meV) and (iii) nontoxic material. Hence, they have been considered as
one of the best candidates for nanoelectro-mechanical systems (NEMS),2 resonators,3 piezoelectric
nanogenerators4,5 or energy harvesting devices.6
In the past years, several studies have been extensively done on mechanical properties of ZnO
NWs, such as in situ scanning electron microscopy (SEM) tension and buckling tests, nanoinden-
tation and contact resonance atomic force microscopy (CR-AFM).7–9 Moreover, a number of other
methods, including theoretical and simulation were utilized to determine the mechanical behaviors of
ZnO nanowires.10–14 Using three-point bending test, ZnO NWs with circular cross-section and various
diameters from 18 to 304 nm were clamped from both ends to determine the values of elastic modulus
and ultimate strength.15 The results showed that the Young’s modulus was essentially independent
from the diameter of ZnO nanowire and close to the bulk value, but ultimate strength increased for
small diameter. In addition, different values of Young’s modulus were measured to be 29±8 GPa

a
Corresponding author. Email address: shuming.yang@mail.xjtu.edu.cn

2158-3226/2018/8(2)/025306/14 8, 025306-1 © Author(s) 2018

025306-2 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

by aligning individual ZnO nanowires on a solid substrate via atomic force microscopy technique,16
∼ 106 GPa with considering hexagonal ZnO nanowire cantilever,17 40.4±11 GPa by bending test,18
30%-40% of the bulk value with diameters between 200-400 nm using uniaxial tensile experi-
ment19 or elastic bending modulus was acquired to be ∼58 GPa.20 Only a few researchers have
been studied the effects of template on mechanical properties of ZnO NWs to investigate buckling
loads via nanoindentation technique.21,22 Furthermore, the effects of substrate with various combi-
nations have been studied on mechanical behaviors of ZnO NWs.23 It was found that the values
of critical loads via aqueous chemical growth (ACG) method were 105 µN on SiC substrate and
114 µN on Si substrate, but using vapor liquid solid (VLS) method the values of critical loads were
198 µN on SiC substrate and 19 µN on Si substrate. It is worth mention that the fracture strength
and Young’s modulus based on tensile and bending experiments24 and also, the fracture stresses
and failure strains using tensile loading and molecular dynamic simulation25 were carried out by
some researchers. Since the effects of size have important roles to play in determining mechani-
cal behaviors; thus, they have received wide attention via experimental and numerical studies.26–30
Besides, MEMS test-bed device was designed to study mechanical properties of ZnO nanowires.31
It is also worth to mention that extensive efforts have been made to investigate optical properties
of nanowires via FDTD simulation techniques, such as bending losses of optical silica, polystyrene
and zinc oxide nanowires,32 the effects of length, diameter and filling ratio on optical absorption
of gallium arsenide (GaAs) nanowire arrays,33 investigation of waveguiding and optical emission
properties of ZnO or GaN NWs34 or optical properties of nanowire/Si structure.35 Moreover, waveg-
uiding properties were studied in ZnO nanowires by use of silica nanowires and tapered fibbers via
experimental and simulation techniques, as well as changes in morphology and core/shell com-
position were performed in order to increase the light absorption by Si nanowire cavities.36,37
It was reported that the optical properties of ZnO NWs were affected by piezotronic influences.38
In the different studies, other researchers were interested in studying (i) changes in photolumi-
nescence and Raman spectra of GaAs/Al0.3 Ga0.7 As/GaAs core/shell nanowires according to the
effects of strain,39 (ii) influences of size on bandgap of ZnO nanowire based on tensile strain,40
(iii) optical properties of silicon and germanium NWs by ultraviolet absorption and photolumines-
cence (PL) spectroscopy41 and (iv) absorptance and reflectance of ZnO nanowire and nanohole array
structures.42
Since there are a few reports which deal with correlation between mechanical and optical
properties of ZnO NWs; therefore, it is important to study the influences of mechanical behavior
on optical properties of nanoscale materials for their applications. In view of this, in this paper
the effects of mechanical strain on the optical properties of single ZnO NW were studied before
and after embedding ZnS nanowire into the ZnO nanowire for the first time, respectively, via
commercial finite element modeling (FEM) software package ABAQUS43 and three-dimensional
(3D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) methods,44 respectively. First, mechanical strains were
investigated via three-point bending test. Second, the physical deformation model was imported
from ABAQUS into FDTD solutions. For this purpose, NX (version 8.0; Siemens PLM Soft-
ware, Plano, TX USA)45 was employed to convert VRML file format to STL file format. Third,
to evaluate optical properties of single ZnO nanowire under mechanical strain, the model was
placed on semi-infinite silicon (Si) substrate was covered with a thin layer of aluminum (Al) and
then clamped by platinum (Pt) layer from both sides. The novel combined method is suitable for
investigating the influences of mechanical strain on optical properties of semiconductor materials
simultaneously.

II. SIMULATION SECTION

A. Finite element modeling

Due to the static method of finite element analysis (FEA), two methods are considered in
ABAQUS, such as linear elastic analysis and non-linear analysis. The first method is linear behav-
ior analysis, which is appropriate for small-displacement so NLGEOM is required to set as “OFF”;
however, the second method is non-linear behavior analysis that needs to set NLGEOM as “ON”
025306-3 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

in order to obtain non-linear behaviors. Therefore, the material properties of ZnO nanowire were
considered in two steps, elastic and plastic conditions to determine stress-strain curve of the model.
In the first part, an elastic material properties were used with eigenvalues of Young’s modulus
E = 144 GPa, Poisson’s ratio ν = 0.35 and density ρ = 5.606 g/cm3 .46 The second part of plas-
tic step was used isotropic hardening with the eigenvalue of ultimate strength σ y =0.2 GPa.47
Moreover, elastic properties of ZnS nanowire such as Young’s modulus, Poisson’s ratio and den-
sity were considered to be E = 127.9 GPa,48 ν = 0.30 and ρ = 3.98 g/cm3 ,46 respectively.
The second part of plastic step was used isotropic hardening with the eigenvalue of ultimate strength
σ y =12.64 GPa.48 According to the bending test, both ends of ZnO nanowire were clamped, as shown
in Figure 1.
Therefore, the degree of freedom of all nodes, including displacement and rotation of x, y and
z-axis are all defined as zero. The Symmetry/Antisymmetry/Encastre (U1 = U2 = U3 = UR1 = UR2
= UR3 = 0) was used as the boundary condition, suitable for stress and displacement analysis. The
concentrated load was created at middle of the span based on STATIC, GENERAL procedure available
in the ABAQUS library which was applicant according to the bending test, direction of applying load
is in opposite of y direction.
Considering the appropriate type of meshing and number of elements directly influences on
accuracy of the results, such as stress, strain, displacement and other parameters, so the different
mesh types and sizes were applied in order to determine finer mesh; therefore, the 11 nm mesh size
were considered with number of elements 89600, number of nodes 110979. Furthermore, the mesh
size, the number of elements and nodes of ZnS nanowire were selected to be 3, 16400 and 36909,
respectively. The elements type was linear hexahedral and C3D8R: an 8-node linear brick, reduced
integration, hourglass control, so the appropriate element provides a confidence from accurate results,
convergence and minimum computational cost. The three-dimensional (3D) elements are applicant
for static behaviors, when the geometry or the load is intricate, hexahedral elements and hourglass
are the first-order element. In the present simulation, the dimensions of the ZnO nanowire were
considered to be 12280 nm in length and 103.2 nm in diameter with hexagonal cross-section, as well
as the geometry and dimensions of ZnS nanowire like length and cross-section were considered to
be hexagonal and 12280 nm, respectively. It should be noted that the diameter of ZnS nanowire was
defined to be 7 nm.48

B. Finite-difference time-domain modeling

The finite-difference time-domain method (FDTD) is a numerical method for evaluating proper-
ties of electromagnetic fields using Maxwell’s equations. In addition, FDTD solutions can be adopted
in a broad range of frequencies. Particularly, the software program is beneficial for solving Maxwell’s
curl equations and modeling a wide variety of complex structures. These advantages made us to utilize

FIG. 1. The schematic diagram of model using bending technique.

025306-4 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

the software package in our research. Therefore, FDTD Solutions software (Lumerical Solutions Inc)
version 8.15.73644 was employed to study optical properties of the nanowire under mechanical strain.
The simulation set up consists of semi-infinite silicon (Si) substrate with the length, width and height
of 23300 nm, 18000 nm and 2600 nm, respectively. Moreover, two thin layers of aluminum (Al) were
covered on the substrate as bridge with dimensions of 23200 nm in length, 1500 nm in width and
1500 nm in height, then single ZnO nanowire was positioned on the aluminum layers and clamped
from both sides by platinum with the length of 1200 nm, width of 1000 nm and height of 160 nm, as
shown in the schematic diagram of Figure 2.
However, the same procedure was repeated for embedding ZnS nanowire into the ZnO nanowire.
In the first simulation set up, the span was launched with strain-free before embedding ZnS nanowire.
Besides, refractive indexes were taken to be 1.998 for bulk ZnO and 2.356 for bulk ZnS.46 With respect
to the size of the FDTD simulation region can affect the results, therefore to simulate the Si substrate
which is semi-infinite, the size of the simulation region and the size of the Si substrate were set up so
that the substrate was extended up to the boundary of the simulation region. Moreover, if there is some
space left between the substrate the simulation region boundary, this would simulate a finite-sized
block of Si substrate where there will be reflections between the interface of the Si and the air next to
the Si substrate. Furthermore, Perfectly Matched Layer (PML) boundary condition was chosen along
the x, y, and z axes with standard profile and 8 layers to absorb the transmitted and reflected light.
Since a beam of electromagnetic radiation propagating in a special direction can be determined by a
Gaussian source, hence it was hired with wavelength of 633 nm, in addition Gaussian beam is a parax-
ial solution of Helmholtz equation and makes it to be appropriate for describing laser beam,49,50 hence
beam waist radius w0 can be characterized based on w0 ' 3λ,51 and it was considered to be 1899 nm in
the simulation. Likewise, imaginary part of the index (k) was used for single frequency simulations as
recommended in FDTD library, and since ZnO and ZnS materials normally do not have an extinction
coefficient k; thus, the k value was setup to be 1010 in the simulation, so that it is nearly zero. Since
the beam source has a specified focus position, thus the distance of the source from the structure make
a difference to the measured reflection and transmission, so moving the position closer or further can
affect the field profile of the beam when it strikes the structure. For this purpose, the source was posi-
tioned above the nanowire. In the model, frequency domain power monitors were placed outside of
the source region and used to record reflection and transmission. The schematic diagram of the simu-
lation set up can be seen in Figure 3. Since the mesh override regions actually make the mesh coarser
than the automatically generated mesh as well as this can be done to make sure that the mesh is not
too coarse for accurate results, so the automatically generated mesh was considered in the simulation
structure. To simulate the results for the structure under stain, the physical deformation of the structure
and the change in refractive index due to applied strain were two effects that can be included in the
simulation.
Therefore, before importing the span under strain from ABAQUS into FDTD solutions, it was
necessary to first convert VRML file format to STL file format. For this aim, NX (version 8.0; Siemens

FIG. 2. The schematic simulation of ZnO nanowire on the Si substrate.

025306-5 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

FIG. 3. The schematic of the sample structure modeled by FDTD technique.

PLM Software, Plano, TX USA)45 was employed to do it. In order to convert the mechanical strain
into a change in refractive of the material, equation (1) was used to calculate changes in refractive
index according to the changes in mechanical strain.52

1
n = n0 − pn0 3 S (1)
2
where n is the change in refractive index due to the effect of the strain, n0 is the refractive index before
applying strain, p is photoelastic constant and S is mechanical strain, which the values of photoelastic
constant and photoelastic matrix for ZnO and ZnS NWs were given in Refs. 46 and 53, respectively.
Moreover, it should also be mentioned that the signs of photoelastic constant for P11 , P12 , P31 were
considered to be negative.54
(i) Elastooptic coefficients of ZnO nanowire

p11 = p22 = ±0.222

p12 = p21 = ±0.099
p13 = p23 = −0.111
p31 = p32 = ±0.088 (2)
p33 = −0.235
p44 = p55 = 0.0585
1
p66 = (p11 − p12 )
2
025306-6 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

TABLE I. Voigt notation.

Matrix notation ik 11 22 33 23 13 12
Voigt notation I 1 2 3 4 5 6

(ii) Elastooptic coefficients of ZnS nanowire

p11 = p22 = −0.115
p12 = p21 = 0.017
p13 = p23 = 0.025
p31 = p32 = 0.0271
p33 = −0.13
p44 = p55 = −0.0627
1
p66 = (p11 − p12 )
2
 p11 p12 p13 0 0 0 
 p p p 0 0 0 
 21 22 23
p31 p32 p33 0 0 0

p=   
 0 0 0 p44 0 0 
 0 0 0 0 p55 0 
 0 0 0 0 0 p66 

In order to put the equation in terms of a matrix multiplication, Voigt notation was hired to do it,55
as exhibited in Table I.
Besides, equation (3) was employed to convert the 3 × 3 strain matrix into a 6 × 1 vector that
can be multiplied with the 6 × 6 tensor of pij coefficients.56 Owning to the above equations, ZnO
nanowire can only be set up to represent a material with diagonal refractive index components, so
instead of only using the diagonal terms for n1 , n2 and n3 , it would be better to simulate ZnO and
ZnS nanowires with a 3 × 3 tensor, including off-diagonal components using matrix transformation
grid attribute to set up the combination of the diagonalized refractive index material and the grid
attribute, which was the most general kind of unitary transformation, so that Magneto-Optical Kerr
Effect (MOKE) was implemented in this technique. Furthermore, the matrix transform contains the
code which calculates the required diagonal refractive index values and unitary transform matrix to
use. For this set up, equation (4) was employed to denote a relationship between refractive index and
permittivity so that it was taken from.57
 S11   S1 
   
 S22   S2 
 S33   S3 
S =  =  (3)
 2S23   S4 
 2S13   S5 
   
 2S   S 
12 6

√
εn (4)
which ε and n are permittivity and refractive index, respectively.

III. COMPARISON BETWEEN FINITE ELEMENT MODELING RESULTS

AND EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
In this section, in order to verify accuracy of the calculations acquired by FEM technique, the
results of FEM modeling were compared with experimental test. For this goal, the comparison was
025306-7 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

carried out between the load versus displacement curve was acquired by FEM modeling with load-
displacement curve that was obtained from the three-point bending experimental test as presented in
Figure 4. For comparative purposes, ZnO nanowire was clamped from both sides with loading point
at mid-span owning to the experimental test, followed by the same parameters, such as cross section,
values of load (nN), Young’s modulus and ultimate strength. From the comparison, it was found that
the results between experimental test and the finite element analysis were close to each other. It can be
seen that the mean value of the ratio, coefficient of variation (COV) and the maximum difference were
1, 0.34 and 18.63%, respectively. From comparison, it was observed that good agreement between
two results. As expected, there were different results between two methods so that some reasons were
studied in our previous work,58 and the other reasons can be due to the:
1. Experimental results can be along with the effects of residual stresses, while they were
overlooked in finite element modeling.
2. Since there were physical and chemistry defects in ZnO during fabrication process, so formation
energy by the Boltzmann factor was demonstrated to play an important role in the concentration
of any point defect in a lattice.59
3. According to these equations.59
n Ef
= exp(− ) (5)
N −n KB T
Where n, N, E f , K B and T are equilibrium defect concentration, number of atoms, forma-
tion energy, Boltzmann constant and temperature, respectively. Therefore if n  N, the above
equation can be represented in the form
Ef
n  N exp(− ) (6)
KB T
From equation (5) two important results can be considered to be:
(i) Decreasing equilibrium vacancy concentration is inversely proportional to temperature.
(ii) Defects happen at low concentrations because they have high formation energies.
4. The factors such as conditions of growth or annealing have significant effects on the formation
energy of a typical point defect.60
From the above literature survey, it can be concluded that there were not defects on ZnO nanowire
was simulated through finite element modeling. Therefore, the result of the FEM analysis program
was much more accurate than experimental results.

FIG. 4. Comparison of experimental force-displacement curve, which Young’s modulus, ultimate strength and radius of ZnO
nanowire are 141 GPa, 7.66 GPa and 9 nm, respectively, by Wen et al.15
025306-8 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

IV. APPLICATION OF COMBINED METHOD

The novel combined method is able to investigate influences of mechanical strain on optical
properties of semiconductor NWs simultaneously and also it can then be proposed for experimental
testing in a broad range of nanoscale applications, as well as utilized as an approach for forecasting
and better understanding of their performance abilities in semiconductor devices. Besides, time and
expense can be saved by novel combined method. Finally, it can be a promising technique for other
semiconductor materials without the need of experimental test. Figure 5 displays a schematic diagram
of experimental set up.

V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

A. Mechanical results and discussions
The aim of this section is to probe mechanical behaviors of ZnO nanowire via bending defor-
mation test before and after embedding ZnS nanowire. So, for this purpose the developed of
three-dimensional (3D) finite element program (ABAQUS) was utilized to simulate ZnO nanowire
under mechanical loading. Furthermore, in this study the nanowire was assumed as elastic-plastic
material with bi-linear stress-strain curve which was linearly elastic and fully plastic, as indicated in
Figure 6. However, it is interesting to note that ZnO NW is ceramic in nature and behaves as a brittle
material.
In other words, brittle failure of ZnO nanowire takes place suddenly without any warning.
In order to obtain mechanical properties of ZnO nanowire, the model was clamped from both sides with
a point loading at mid-span by three-point bending technique. In addition, the load was applied from
0 to 32 nN until the span reached the perfectly plastic state in which it was revealed that the brittle fail-
ure was occurred in ZnO nanowire. The load versus displacement diagram and stress versus strain were
employed to display mechanical response of ZnO nanowire before and after embedding ZnS nanowire.

FIG. 5. The schematic view of the experimental set up (a) front view (b) side view.
025306-9 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

FIG. 6. Stress-strain diagram of elastic-plastic material.

Based on the elastic regime, the stress was increased linearly which was related to the load increment,
however, the non-linear stress was found after reaching the failure regime. Relationship between load
and displacement of ZnO nanowire before and after embedding ZnS nanowire were depicted in
Figure 7. It can be obviously seen that there were linear elastic deformations until brittle failure.
Furthermore, the value of failure load was acquired to be 32 nN and also maximum deflection in the
middle of loading point was gained to be 133 nm but after embedding ZnS nanowire it was decreased
to 132.9 nm. It was also important to study stress-strain diagram of the span. Thus, Figure 8 exhibits
elastic/failure region with constant ultimate strength at 0.2 GPa after reaching the failure region.
According to the three-point bending test, there were three critical regimes, such as both supports
and the loading position at mid-span as presented in Figure 9. From Figure 9, it can be understood
that tensile and compressive stresses were took place on the outer surface and on the inner surface,
respectively. And also tensile and compressive strains were occurred on the outer and inner surfaces,
respectively. Moreover, since the loading zone had the highest stress concentration than two supports,
thus first brittle failure happened at the loading regime.

B. Optical results and discussions

In this section, changes in geometric and refractive index of ZnO nanowire based on mechani-
cal strain were considered in our analysis. For designing optical-mechanical devices based on their

FIG. 7. Relationship between load versus vertical deflection curves on the loading point.
025306-10 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

FIG. 8. Static stress-strain curve of ZnO NW.

performance abilities, it is interesting to observe the effects of mechanical behaviors on optical prop-
erties of semiconductor materials. Therefore, in this section, the simulation was carried out according
to the influences of mechanical strain on optical properties of pure ZnO nanowire and embedding
ZnS nanowire into the ZnO nanowire. For these studies, the nanowires were simulated based on
changes in refractive index and permittivity tensor after applying mechanical strain. Therefore, for
this aim three-dimensional (3D) finite difference time-domain (FDTD) solutions were adopted to
study optical properties of the sample under mechanical strain. Moreover, a single focused Gaussian
beam with wavelength of 633 nm was employed as source. By use of this structure, it is possible to
evaluate and predict various optical properties, such as reflectance, transmittance and absorptance of

FIG. 9. Three-point bending test of ZnO nanowire in the critical regions such as (a) both supports (b) loading region with
compressive stresses on the inner surface and tensile stresses on the outer surface.
025306-11 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

ZnO nanowire with or without embedding ZnS nanowire in the presence of mechanical strain simul-
taneously. In the beginning of the simulation, the spans were lunched free from strain and refractive
index has been chosen to be 1.998 for bulk ZnO nanowire and 2.356 for bulk ZnS nanowire. Then the
mechanical deformation models were imported into FDTD solutions. In this simulation, reflectance
R ( f )/transmission T ( f ) were determined using equation (7), as given by FDTD solutions.44
1 →− Monitor → −
2 ∫ real( P( f ) ).d S
R( f ), T ( f ) = (7)
sourcepower
1 Source
2 ∫ real(P( f ) ).dS
Sourcepowercwnorm ( f ) =
|sourcenorm| 2
where P( f ) and dS are the Poynting vector and the surface normal, respectively, as well as the source
power for “cwnorm” will be used since this is generally the normalization method that is utilized
for frequency domain monitors. It was first found that the increase of strain led to rise in reflectance
of pure ZnO nanowire, and also it was observed that after embedding ZnS nanowire the reflectance
values were first increased and then decreased slowly. Furthermore, it was also seen that the reduction
of transmittance was induced by increasing strain for all nanowires. In other words, in the absence
of strain the values of transmittance were bigger than the presence of strain. Absorptance of ZnO
nanowire was calculated through equation (8) as given by.61
A=1 − T − R (8)
where T and R are the transmittance and reflectance, respectively.
In contrast, mechanical strain induced increase in absorptance; however, it was first observed
decrease in absorptance for pure and embedding ZnS nanowire into the ZnO nanowire which the
reason may be due to the increased light reflection at the surface of the nanowires and the sufficient field
concentration at the wavelength.33 Figure 10 presents the effects of strain on reflectance, transmittance
and absorptance, respectively. Based on simulation results, it was clear that there were remarkable

FIG. 10. Influences of mechanical strain on optical properties of ZnO nanowire such as (a) reflectance (b) transmittance and
(c) absorptance.
025306-12 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

correlations between mechanical strain and optical properties, which have been disclosed to play
important roles in optical properties of ZnO nanowire. In addition, strains led to deformation of
ZnO and ZnS NWs and also induced changes in refractive index and subsequently the permittivity
tensor of the all nanowires so that they can be described in relationship between terms of refractive
index, photoelastic and permittivity tensors. It is worth mention that changes in refractive index of
semiconductor create by strain and also photoelastic effects are caused by the applied strain. So, it
can be seen that the rate of changes of permittivity tensor of ZnO and ZnS nanowires were affected
by changing refractive index based on equation (4).
Hence, it was therefore found that equations (1) and (4) can be performed in order to investigate
the optical properties of ZnO nanowire under mechanical strain. For instance, in the absence of
strain refractive index of bulk ZnO and ZnS nanowires were 1.998 and 2.356, respectively, but after
applying bending strain it has been demonstrated that strain-induced changes in the refractive index
and also changes in permittivity tensor. Thus, optical properties of ZnO nanowires were extremely
sensitive to any change in the morphology of the shape, size, or refractive index which was produced by
mechanical strain, which means that a small change may imply a significant change of the intensity of
light that has passed through material. Furthermore, refractive indices were increased with increasing
load and they were exposed to be more sensitive at high loads so that affected optical properties of the
nanowire. This study has demonstrated that dependence of optical behaviors of the specimen may be
more sensitive to the deformation and change in length. From the above analysis and results, it has
been found that the optical properties of ZnO nanowire were fully susceptible to mechanical strain
of bending test. Since nanowires are anisotropic materials, thus direction of applying force can effect
on mechanical results and subsequently optical properties. There are several key factors related to
the changes of optical properties of ZnO nanowire based on mechanical strain so that they can be
discovered in, for instance: refractive index is a function of the strain state, thus it leads to the incident
light to deviate from a straight-line path.62 The values of refractive index in three directions can be
changed by mechanical strain; so, not one but two waves of different velocity may be propagated
through a crystal with a given wave normal, which these waves are plane polarized. Also, it causes
a small change in orientation of indicatrix.53 Besides, intensity of light pass may be affected by
changing the thickness of the sample based on mechanical load.63 Likewise, increased absorptance
in ZnO nanowire by embedding ZnS nanowire in comparison with pure ZnO nanowire may be based
on increased optical path length. Also, may be based on most of incident light cannot be coupled into
the NWs, but is absorbed in a single path through the nanowire.33 Furthermore, changes in optical
properties of ZnO nanowire for all specimens can also due to the incident light were positioned in
the same direction as the applied load or in vertical parallel to the nanowire axis. In other words, the
direction of incident light can make the difference in the results that were obtained.

VI. CONCLUSIONS
In summary, the effects of mechanical strain on the performance of optical properties of single
ZnO nanowire with and without embedding ZnS nanowire were examined using combination of FEM
modeling and FDTD techniques. In the current simulation, first the bending test was performed at
the mid-span under loading condition to define elastic/failure region, stress and strain distributions.
Then in order to verify optical simulation results with single wavelength the physical deformation
models were imported into FDTD and placed on a semi-infinite silicon (Si) substrate were covered
by thin layer of aluminum (Al), finally both sides of ZnO nanowire were clamped by platinum (Pt)
layer. And also, the same method was repeated for ZnS nanowire which has been embedded into
the ZnO nanowire. According to the FDTD modeling, results of optical behaviors were dependent
on mechanical strain that induced changes in reflectance, transmittance and absorptance. The novel
combined method is able to investigate the effects of mechanical strain on optical properties of
semiconductor nanowires simultaneously. Therefore, there are advantages with the use of combined
method so that it can be (i) promising and challenging technique for use in other semiconductor
materials, (ii) predicted the results without the need of experimental test, (iii) employed in a wide
range of nanoscale materials with many important applications and (iv) developed in the future
of nanotechnology industries. Moreover, our next research is study of the effects of mechanical
025306-13 Vazinishayan et al. AIP Advances 8, 025306 (2018)

strain on optical properties of ZnO nanowire like electric field intensity, magnetic field intensity and
Poynting vector using FEM and FDTD techniques. Furthermore, we would like to study other optical
properties of ZnO nanowire by combining molecular dynamic (MD) simulations and FDTD solutions
via three-point bending test in future.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the financial supports by National Science Fund for Excellent
Young Scholars (No. 51722509), National Nature Science Foundation of China (No. 51575440) and
National Key R&D Plan (2017YFB1104700).
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