Physical Review Letters , 2009, 103 (10), 105501.

Correlation between critical temperature and strength of small-scale bcc pillars

Schneider, Andreas S. | Kaufmann, Daniel | Clark, Blythe G. | Frick, Carl P. | Gruber, Patric A. | Mönig, Reiner | Kraft, Oliver | Arzt, Eduard

Microcompression tests were performed on focused-ion-beam-machined micropillars of several body-centered-cubic metals (W, Mo, Ta, and Nb) at room temperature. The relationship between yield strength and pillar diameter as well as the deformation morphologies were found to correlate with a parameter specific for bcc metals, i.e., the critical temperature Tc. This finding sheds new light on the phenomenon of small-scale plasticity in largely unexplored non-fcc metals.