In situ physical examination of Bi2S3 nanowires with a microscope

The service stability and safety of nanoscale working cells is an inescapable issue for their larger-scale adoption in industry. Previous works on device design and manufacture in most case would ignore this problem due to the lack of proper accessible techniques. This article presents the initial physical assessment on the Bi2S3 nanowires in virtue of in situ techniques with a microscope. The Bi2S3 compounds prepared via deposition method are potentially applicable for visible-NIR photodetectors with a responsivity of 3.57 A/W. However, the fracture of an individual Bi2S3 nanowire accompanied by a demonstrated change in crystal structure was directly observed, due to Joule Heating under a high bias. In addition, the uniaxial bending will lead to a drop of conductance in nanowires, attributed to a local electric field generated across the radial direction of the nanowire. More importantly, the Young's modulus for the Bi2S3 nanowires, ∼84.7 ± 2 GPa, was firstly reported through in situ experiments, confirming a soft nature of Bi2S3 nanowires as compared to silicon or germanium counterparts, which supports their application in flexible devices. The sum of these findings is of significance for original design and manufacture of more reliable optoelectronic devices and systems in future.