To cause the mesh segment to melt one at a time, ΔI must be properly tuned. When the temperature in a given mesh segment reaches the melting point T m of the nanowire itself, the corresponding mesh segment melts and breaks with an arbitrary small force generated in actual operation such as a vibration. This temperature is considered the maximum temperature, T max, of the mesh. The electrical failure is believed to occur at the mesh segment. Here, the following two critical modifications have been made to the previously developed numerical method [24]. First, instead of using the temperature in the center of a mesh segment to approximate learn more the T max, five points uniformly distributed along each segment are monitored to determine

whether the temperature reaches T m and melting occurs. If the temperature in a segment reaches T m before the temperature at a mesh node, then the mesh segment melts and breaks. However, if the temperature of a mesh node reaches T m first, then the adjacent segments connected to the node melt simultaneously and break. Second, the temperature dependence of the resistivity is ignored for simplification; thus, the resistivity of the metallic nanowire at the melting point, not the resistivity of the metallic nanowire at room temperature (R.T.), is employed during the simulation to approximate real conditions. The input

current of the mesh triggering the melting of the mesh segment and the corresponding selleck chemicals voltage of the mesh (i.e., the difference in the electrical potential Bacterial neuraminidase between the input and the output) are recorded as the melting current I m and the melting voltage V m, respectively. The corresponding resistance R of the

mesh buy RAD001 can be calculated by dividing V m by I m. Subsequently, the cross-sectional area of the melted mesh segment is set at a very small value to approximate a cross-sectional area of zero. The pathway of the current and heat in the mesh will be correspondingly renewed. By increasing the input current gradually, the current that triggers the subsequent melting of the mesh segment can be determined. By repeating the aforementioned process until the mesh opens, the relationship between I m and V m can be determined throughout the melting process. Results and discussion Numerical model of an Ag nanowire mesh An Ag nanowire mesh of size 10 × 10 is shown in Figure 4 as an example. The numbers of mesh nodes and mesh segments are 100 and 180, respectively. The pitch size is l = 200 μm, and the cross-sectional area of the Ag nanowire is A = 0.01 μm2. Taking into account the size effect, the physical properties of the Ag nanowire listed in Table 1 are employed in the simulation. Note that the melting point of Ag nanowire was experimentally measured to be 873 K [14]. The resistivity, ρ m, of the Ag nanowire at the melting point is estimated at 0.378 Ω∙μm using the resistivity, ρ 0, of the Ag nanowire at R.T. and the temperature coefficient of resistivity, α, for bulk Ag.