The experiment and simulation method to calibrate the shear modulus of individual ZnO nanorod

A general method is presented to directly measure the shear modulus of an individual nanorod using atomic force microscope (AFM). To obtain shear modulus with less experiment error, finite element simulation is employed to simulate the twisting process of a ZnO nanorod. Based on the experimental measurements, the shear modulus of ZnO nanorod with 4 μm in length and 166 nm in radius is characterized to be 9.1 ± 0.2 GPa, which is obviously more accurate than the simple averaged experimental result.