Time-dependent nanoscale plasticity of ZnO nanorods

External stresses are applied during operation or storage in flexible electronics, which makes understanding time-dependent plastic deformation of nanobuilding blocks more crucial for ensuring the reliability of the devices. Here, we systematically explored the time-dependent nanoscale plasticity of single-crystal ZnO nanorods and its size effects. A series of compression creep tests under different low stresses (in elastic regime) were performed on vertically oriented rods having equivalent diameters in the range of ∼200 to ∼2000 nm. It was revealed that creep indeed occurs in the rods even at ambient temperature, and is more pronounced in smaller nanorods. Analyzing the stress exponent and the activation volume suggests that the enhanced plasticity may be controlled by the diffusion creep (through the “space-charge layer” near the surface and/or along the interface between the punch and the top surface of the rod), which is supported by the results from in situ creep tests under electron-beam irradiation and in situ electric measurements.