Mechanical annealing and source-limited deformation in submicrometre-diameter Ni crystals

The fundamental processes that govern plasticity and determine strength in crystalline materials at small length scales have been studied for over fifty years1,2,3. Recent studies of single-crystal metallic pillars with diameters of a few tens of micrometres or less have clearly demonstrated that the strengths of these pillars increase as their diameters decrease4,5,6,7, leading to attempts to augment existing ideas about pronounced size …