Chuang Deng¹, Frederic Sansoz², Reza Rezaei³; ¹University of Manitoba, ²University of Vermont, ³University of Tehran

Twinning plays important roles during the deformation of FCC metal nanowires, especially those with low stacking fault energy such as Au. Thanks to the rapid development of in-situ nanomechanical testing platform in recent years, it is now a common practice to directly compare experimentally observed deformation behavior in nanoscale materials with atomistic simulations. In this talk, the roles of both pre-existing coherent twin boundaries and deformation twinning on the strength and plasticity in Au nanowires as explored by atomistic simulations will be presented and compared with those reported experimentally based on in-situ nanomechanical tests. The specific topics include the size dependent strength and plasticity in Au nanowires with equi-spaced horizontal twin boundaries, a new form of pseudo-elasticity in Au nanowires with slanted twin boundaries, and shape-memory effects in single crystalline cylindrical Au nanowires mediated by deformation twinning.