Probing the three-dimensional strain inhomogeneity and equilibrium   elastic properties of single crystal Ni nanowires
  We employ three dimensional x-ray coherent diffraction imaging to map the lattice strain distribution, and to probe the elastic properties of a single crystalline Ni (001) nanowire grown vertically on an amorphous Si02 || Si substrate. The reconstructed density maps show that with increasing wire width, the equilibrium compressive stress in the core region decreases sharply while the surface tensile strain increases, and gradually trends to a nonzero constant. We use the retrieved projection of lattice distortion to predict the Young's Modulus of the wire based on the elasticity theory. 
E. Fohtung, J. W. Kim, Keith T. Chan, Ross Harder, Eric E. Fullerton   and O. G. Shpyrko
cond-mat.mes-hall cond-mat.mtrl-sci