ABSTRACT
Recent remarkable progress in manufacturing technology enables us to manufacture atomic-scale materials, the structure of which we can precisely control at an atom-by-atom level, e.g., carbon nanotubes (CNTs), gold nanowires, and atomic chains consisting of gold atoms arranged in a line. In these atomic-scale materials, even a slight displacement of atoms can lead to critical malfunction or failure of a component. This is especially true of surfaces and interfaces, where disarrangement of the atoms can affect the mechanical behavior of the materials as well as other of their physical properties. This suggests that conventional concepts of material strength based on continuum mechanics cannot be applied to atomic components. Hence, it is essential to understand the intrinsic strength of these materials from atomistic and electronic points of view. However, it is, in general, quite difficult to carry out precise experiments on an atomic scale.
