It was noted that the cubic phase, which had an essentially zero formation energy, predominated in SiC nanowires. These nanowires contained twin boundaries that were widely separated; in contradiction to the zero formation energy. A model was presented to account for well-separated and equally-spaced twins in SiC nanowires. The model was based upon the energy minimization of interfaces and edges near to twin boundaries. The theoretical result showed that the distance between neighboring twin boundaries was equal to 18 to 31% of the diameter for SiC nanowires. This result was in agreement with the experimental data on SiC nanowires and also those of micro-whiskers in the literature.

Twin Formation during SiC Nanowire Synthesis. H.W.Shim, Y.Zhang, H.Huang: Journal of Applied Physics, 2008, 104[6], 063511