ABSTRACT
With the development of process technology, it has become possible to fabricate thin films comprised of aggregated nanometer-scale elements (nano-elements), as illustrated in Fig. 6.1a [Hersee et al., 2006; Kipshidze et al., 2005; Mohan et al., 2005; Tomioka et al., 2007; Dyke and Martin, 1990; Lee et al., 2007; Lai et al., 2008]. Because of its characteristic structure, the film is expected to have exotic mechanical properties. A porous film with tunable nano-holes, illustrated in Fig. 6.1b [Guo et al., 2005; Chung et al., 2007; Jin et al., 1998; Zhu and Ding, 1999; Kohl et al., 1999; Shin et al., 2005;
Ekanayake et al., 2007; Zang et al., 2005], is in this family in terms of its mechanical behavior. Although we discuss only the examples of nano-elements in Fig. 6.1a in this chapter, that behavior is easily extended to films with nano-holes, shown in Fig. 6.1b.
