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Decreasing scales effectively increase nearly all important mechanical properties of at least some "brittle" materials below 100 nm. With an emphasis on silicon nanopillars, nanowires, and nanospheres, it is shown that strength, ductility, and toughness all increase roughly with the inverse radius of the appropriate dimension. This is shown experimentally as well as on a mechanistic basis using a proposed dislocation shielding model. Theoretically, this collects a reasonable array of semiconductors and ceramics onto the same field using fundamental physical parameters. This gives proportionality between fracture toughness and the other mechanical properties. Additionally, this leads to a fundamental concept of work per unit fracture area, which predicts the critical event for brittle fracture. In semibrittle materials such as silicon, this can occur at room temperature when the scale is sufficiently small. When the local stress associated with dislocation nucleation increases to that sufficient to break bonds, an instability occurs resulting in fracture.

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Bulk nanocomposites possessing very high hardness in which TiN nanocrystallites are homogeneously embedded in an amorphous Si3N4 matrix are produced from perhydropolysilazane and tetrakisdimethylaminotitanium. That is, a low-molecular-weight TiN molecule is mixed in controlled molar ratio with a polymeric Si3N4 precursor; further processing, including ammonolysis, warm pressing, and controlled nanocrystal growth, yields nanocomposites with the desired properties.