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, for example, 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 continuummechanics 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.
