Non-conventional Small-Scale Mechanical Testing of Materials

Development of non-conventional mechanical testing techniques was primarily driven by the requirement to measure mechanical properties at smaller length scales with increasing miniaturization of devices, as well as the need for microstructure design from bottom up. This review covers the techniques involved in determining the small-scale deformation and fracture response of materials under different stress states. This is an attempt to provide a summary of choices and test protocols to potential users based on the property of interest to them. It begins with the basics of test instrumentation and sample preparation, followed by a short introduction to modeling tools that accompany testing, and later gets into the details of individual tests and their advantages and limitations. Selected applications from recent published works are presented to provide a flavor of material systems whose behaviour differs significantly from the macro-scale due to their size and/or architecture. At the end fallacies in data interpretation and a roadmap to standardization followed by ideas and future scope for non-conventional small-scale testing are given.