Tensile behaviour of micro-sized copper wires studied using a novel fibre tensile module

Tensile experiments on micro-sized polycrystalline copper wires with diameters ranging from 14 pm to 50 pm were performed using a recently developed fibre tensile module capable of high accuracy and flexibility. This module is able to fit into a scanning electron microscope for in-situ deformation studies. In this study the influence of the gauge length, wire diameter and grain size on the tensile properties is analysed. In-situ experiments performed in a scanning electron microscope revealed clearly that the occurrence of pop-in events in the load-displacement curves are related to slip. The results are compared to deformation studies of micro-sized copper samples in the literature and discussed taking in-situ scanning electron microscope observations into account.