Mechanical characterization of hotplate synthesized vanadium oxide nanobelts

Vanadium oxide nanobelts have been synthesized on Si or SiN substrates by simply heating vanadium foils on a hotplate. As-grown nanobelts were characterized as V2O5·nH2O (0.3 < n < 1.7) layer structures containing water molecular intercalation. Using an electromechanical resonance method, the Young’s modulus of the nanobelts was measured in situ in a scanning electron microscope. It was found that the Young’s modulus of as-grown nanobelts varied between 5.6 and 98 GPa, with a typical Q-factor of 120. Such scattered values were attributed to the different contents of water molecules in the nanobelts. After annealing at 450 °C in vacuum, the nanobelts were converted to α-V2O5 phase and a polycrystalline structure was observed. The Young’s modulus of the annealed nanobelts showed more consistent values at an average of 28.9 GPa, lower than the calculated modulus of bulk α-V2O5 at 68 GPa.