Appl Phys A (2011) 103: 285–291
DOI 10.1007/s00339-010-6050-0
Small-span bending test for determination of elastic-plastic
properties of ultrathin Pt wires
Hironori Tohmyoh · M.A. Salam Akanda ·
Masumi Saka
Received: 6 April 2010 / Accepted: 8 September 2010 / Published online: 23 September 2010
© Springer-Verlag 2010
Abstract A mechanical testing methodology for determina-
tion of elastic-plastic properties of very thin metallic wires
using small-span bending under lateral load is described.
Sufficient strain is locally developed in the tested section
of wire by unsymmetrical bending with two opposite probes
where one end of the wire is fixed on a substrate with rigid
joint by Joule heat welding. From the load-displacement re-
lationships obtained experimentally, Young’s modulus is de-
termined by analytical formulation. Moreover, yield stress
and hardening modulus of the wire are identified using an
optimization strategy with finite-element analyses. The thin
Pt wires with a nominal diameter of about 625 nm are exam-
ined by the testing scheme and the wires are found to have
higher yield stress compared to bulk Pt.
1 Introduction
Various kinds of small-scaled materials such as nanowires or
whiskers have been expected to be used as key components,
e.g., structural, electrical, optical and thermal elements, in
nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) or microelectro-
mechanical systems (MEMS) due to their excellent physi-
cal properties. Generally, small-scaled materials are known
to have pure crystalline structures without defects and such
highly-ordered materials show higher strength compared
with bulk materials [1–5]. On the other hand, because the
plastic deformation occurs in the results of movement of
dislocations [1, 5–8], small-scaled materials without defects
H. Tohmyoh () · M.A.S. Akanda · M. Saka
Department of Nanomechanics, Tohoku University, Aoba 6-6-01,
Aramaki, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8579, Japan
e-mail: tohmyoh@ism.mech.tohoku.ac.jp
Fax: +81-22-7956893
may show brittle characteristic compared with their bulk
materials. For example, because the sufficient atoms and
their arrangements are needed for inducing plastic defor-
mation, the atomic-scale, metallic wire may show no plas-
tic deformation. Brittle behavior of materials is sometimes
unsuitable for structural components because the fracture
occurs suddenly and sufficient time to prevent the fracture
is hardly to be kept. Moreover, the fracture strength varies
depending on their crystalline structure or geometrical fea-
tures, and therefore, the fracture of brittle materials includ-
ing the random factors is unpredictable. As reliable small-
scaled materials, proper plastic deformation ability of mate-
rial must be indispensable in addition to higher and stable
strength. Larger plastic deformation of materials is also im-
portant for absorbing the shock energy. The very thin metal-
lic wires with the diameter range of 100–1000 nm are ex-
pected to have both higher strength and sufficient plastic
properties and these must be indispensable structural ele-
ments in NEMS/MEMS.
To verify and understand the material functionality and
application domains of the above range of wires and to con-
trol their behavior, the elastic-plastic properties of the wires
should be accurately determined. However, it is not an easy
task to realize it in the present state. In evaluating the prop-
erties of thin metallic wires, testing by scanning tunneling
microscope (STM) [9] or atomic force microscope (AFM)
[1–3, 10, 11] and nanoindentation [12] are well reported. Es-
pecially, the AFM is now a most promising way to obtain the
mechanical properties of materials because it can detect very
small force. Usually in AFM based (tensile or bending) tests
[1–3, 10], the samples are fixed on AFM tip or substrate.
However, it is hard to develop a suitable setup for testing due
to the difficulty in handling the small-scaled objects. More-
over, in the AFM based technique, the deformation shape is
difficult to be monitored during testing. The in-situ observa-
286 H. Tohmyoh et al.

tion of small-scaled objects during testing may give us more

valuable information for understanding nanomechanics of
small-scaled materials.
In the present paper, we report a testing methodology for
determining the elastic-plastic properties of very thin metal-
lic wires with the diameter of less than 1 µm. The cutting and
welding techniques for thin wires using Joule heating [13–
15] are used in handling the thin wire samples, and the ex-
perimental setup suitable for asymmetric, small-span bend-
ing with the visualization of a high-resolution digital micro-
scope is constructed. The higher stress field is locally devel-
oped in the wire with the closely-coupled force probes and
the load-displacement relationships of the ultrathin Pt wire
for various probe distances are recorded. From the relation-
ships, Young’s modulus of the Pt thin wire is determined an-
alytically. Moreover, by fitting the experimentally obtained
load-displacement relationship and that obtained by nonlin-
ear finite-element analysis (FEA), yield stress and harden-
ing modulus of thin wire are successfully determined. Ex-
amined ultrathin Pt wires with the diameters in the range
of 615 to 770 nm clearly show work hardening effects and
higher yield stress as compared with reported bulk Pt.

Fig. 1 Concept of testing methodology. (a) Schematic of local

2 Testing scheme
The tested material is assumed to be linear hardening elastic-
plastic material. The relationship between stress, σ , and
strain, ε, for the material can be expressed as
σ
ε= , for σ ≤ σY , (1)
E the loading is considered close to a fixed support C and far
and
σY σ − σY
ε= + , for σ > σY , (2)
E E
where E, σY and E  are Young’s modulus, yield stress and
hardening modulus, respectively, and these three parameters
should be decided for describing the elastic-plastic proper-
ties of the material.
The tensile test may be the simplest one and the mechan-
ical properties of materials can be directly determined from
the stress-strain relationship. However, in case of thin wire
specimens, they are likely to be broken at the grips due to
unacceptable scratch and the stress concentration at these
regions. Moreover, the very thin wires prepared by vapor-
liquid-solid [16], spattering [17], or atomic diffusion [18]
techniques are usually on the substrate and one end of the
wires is rigidly fixed. Therefore, the bending tests are the
best choice to determine the mechanical properties of small-
scaled objects. The configuration of the proposed testing is
illustrated in Fig. 1(a). A one-end-fixed sample is consid-
ered for bending at its free end by two opposite probes. As
small-span bending configuration. (b) Assumed distribution of yield
stress along diameter of the wire at yield point. (c) Equivalent plastic
strain at top fiber as a function of span ratio (a/b) and deformation (δ)
of the wire. Here l is fixed at 60 µm and a is varying in the range of 6
to 15 µm
from the fixed end A, higher stress field due to large bending
occurs locally across the loading probe B and this eliminates
the problem of failure at the root of the sample.
The load-displacement relationship obtained by the bend-
ing test contains the elastic and elastic-plastic regions. The
property, E can be obtained from the load-displacement re-
lation in the elastic zone as
P b3 P b4 (2l + a)2
E= − , (3)
3I δ 12l 3 I δ
where P is the load applied by the probe at B, δ the dis-
placement at the loading point in the loading direction, b
the distance between the fixed end (A) and the loading point
(B), a the distance between the loading point (B) and the
simply-supported end (C), and l the total span length. The
symbol I is for the moment of inertia of area of the sample
and is given by πd 4 /64 for wire, where d is the diameter of
the wire. If we consider the whole cross-sectional area of the
wire yielded as shown in Fig. 1(b), the moment at the yield-
Small-span bending test for determination of elastic-plastic properties of ultrathin Pt wires 287

ing point corresponding to yield load, PY , can be described

as
 3
4 d PY ab2
M = σY = (2l + a). (4)
3 2 2l 3
From (4), yield stress σY is given by

3PY ab2
σY = (2l + a).
l3d 3
The remaining parameter, E  is difficult to be determined
analytically because it is a nonlinear problem. The distri-
bution of yield stress as considered (Fig. 1(b)) is valid for
fully plastic behavior of materials. Therefore, for accurate
estimation of σY and E  we employ elastic-plastic FEA. In
this case, the value for σY obtained from (5) is taken as the
initial guess for FEA. By searching the best fitting of the
load-displacement relationship obtained by FEA with the
experimental one [19], the parameters σY and E  are deter-
mined. Here, to improve the accuracy level of fitting, mod-
erate strain around the loading region should effectively be
induced for a required range of displacement. Figure 1(c)
shows the distributions of equivalent plastic strain against
the ratio a/b for various values of δ obtained by FEA. The
data used for this analysis were; d = 800 nm, l = 60 µm and
a = 6–15 µm. It is clear that the smaller a gives effective
increase in plastic deformation with increase in δ, and there-
fore, the testing configuration presented in Fig. 1(a) is effi-
ciently used to induce sufficient plastic strain locally around
the loading point.
3 Experiment and analysis
3.1 Sample preparation
Extremely thin Pt wires with the nominal diameter of
625 nm were examined. The ultrathin wires were Ag-coated
with the overall diameter of about 75 µm. This type of wire
is known as Wollaston wire [20]. The Wollaston wires were
cut into 10 mm lengths. The Ag coatings around the tips of
the cut pieces were removed by HNO3 to expose Pt. Fig-
ure 2(a) shows a transmission electron microscope (TEM)
micrograph of the length-wise cross-section of an examined
Pt wire together with the selected area diffraction (SADIFF)
patterns obtained at the points S1 and S2 along the length of
the section and the nano-beam electron diffraction (NBD)
patterns obtained at the points N1 to N3 along the diameter
of the wire. No clear grain boundary was observed in the
TEM image and the SADIFF patterns on the wire showed
the same orientation. The facts indicated that the wire had
an elongated grain structure. The different NBD patterns
demonstrated that the examined Pt wire was covered with
very thin polycrystalline layer.
(5)
Fig. 2 (a) The TEM image of the cross-section of the examined ultra-
thin Pt wire. (b) SEM micrographs for Pt-In joint. A magnified view of
the joint is inserted
To obtain the one-end-fixed beam structure on a suitable
substrate for Pt wire as a testing sample, we adopted the
welding and cutting techniques utilizing Joule heating [13–
15, 21]. Indium (In) wire of diameter 500 µm was taken as
substrate material. To make a joint with Pt the In wire is
prepared to have a very sharp tip end. The In substrate and
the Pt sample were individually placed on two nanomanipu-
lators via Cu electrodes and they were aligned in line and
brought in tip to tip contact. After that a conducting mi-
croprobe placed on a separate nanomanipulator brought in
lateral contact with the Pt wire and electric current was sup-
plied through the contact of Pt and In by making a suitable
circuit having a controlled current source. Due to Joule heat
dissimilar metal weld joint at the contact of Pt and In was
obtained. To avoid the change in property of the Pt sample
due to Joule heating, the length of the Pt wire for conducting
electric current was kept minimum (around 5 µm). After the
welding, the Pt wire was cut to form a cantilever on the In
substrate with a length of about 200 µm. The details of cut-
ting the Pt wire at any point can be seen in reference [21].
Figure 2(b) shows a scanning electron microscope (SEM)
micrograph of a typical weld joint between the Pt wire and
the In substrate. The weld joint was found to be rigid. In
the bending experiment, the welded end of the Pt wire is,
therefore, considered as the fixed end of the testing sample.
288
Fig. 3 (a) Photograph of the testing setup. (b) Digital microscope im-
age of loading configuration. (c) Compact force sensor used
3.2 Testing apparatus
In the test setup, a force sensor, a piezo stage and two
manipulators (one carrying the sample and the other car-
rying the piezo stage), were set on a single platform, see
Fig. 3(a). The sample was taken on a carrier and by using
manual manipulation, the sample was placed just touching
the fixed probe with desired flexural length and the load-
ing probe of the force sensor was placed against the sam-
ple as shown in Fig. 3(b). The deformation in sample and
the corresponding load for the testing were recorded in a
computer directly. The deformation pattern was also mon-
itored by a high-resolution digital microscope. The load-
displacement relationships for bending the ultrathin Pt wires
were recorded under the various combinations of l and a.
The loading probes were made of hard material W. Using
focused-ion-beam machining the tip part of each probe was
made as 5 µm diameter cylindrical surface for smooth con-
tact with the Pt wire sample.
The force sensor was composed of a cantilever and a ca-
pacitive (CP) sensor [22], see Fig. 3(c). This compact, in-
tegrated force sensor was designed to use with the combi-
nation of various types of microscopes. The deformation of
the Pt wire is given by δ = δS − δC , where δS is the dis-
placement of piezo stage and δC the deflection of the can-
tilever. The cross-sectional area of the cantilever beam was
0.54 ×0.05 mm, and the beam length was 29.5 mm. The
force acting on the wire is given by P = kδC , where k is
the spring constant of cantilever and that of the cantilever
used was 1.1 N/m. The range for CP sensor used was up
H. Tohmyoh et al.
to 25 µm, and the maximum load as sensor capacity was
27.5 µN. It was experimentally confirmed that the measure-
ment uncertainty level of this type of force sensor was found
within 0.4% of maximum load. The resolution of the present
force sensor was about 10 nN.
3.3 Finite-element analysis
The FEA is performed considering finite deformation of the
bending problem. For FEA using MARC software [23], the
wire is assumed as circular cross-section with uniform di-
ameter along the length. The measured force-displacement
relation consists of two parts, i.e., a linear elastic part and
nonlinear elastic-plastic part. From the linear elastic part the
value of E is determined by using (3). Elastic-plastic FEA
is performed using the evaluated E and assumed values for
σY and E  . In the repeated simulations, suitable values for
σY and E  are looked into for which the best matching be-
tween FEA and experimental P –δ relations is obtained. In
the optimization strategy, at first assuming a small value for
E  the value of σY is adjusted by matching the FEA and
experimental P –δ relations up to the first point of nonlin-
earity. Then E  is adjusted by matching the rest of the P –δ
relations. It should be noted that in FEA the wire-probe fric-
tion coefficient is assumed to be 0.2 as the two cylindrical
surfaces make a smooth contact.
4 Results and discussions
Figure 4(a) shows an example of the experimental force-
displacement (P –δ) relationship obtained under the condi-
tion of l = 60 µm and a = 10 µm. Also the deformation pat-
terns of the wire corresponding to the loading states A, B
and C as shown in Fig. 4(a) are shown in Figs. 4(b), (c) and
(d), respectively, and the pattern after unloading is shown
in Fig. 4(e). From the bending patterns, it was clear that
less bending occurred at the root of the wire and maximum
bending took place across the tip of loading probe. After
unloading, the root region of the wire returned to its orig-
inal shape whereas a permanent bending remained at the
loading point; see Fig. 4(e). This confirmed that sufficient
plastic deformation in the wire was successfully achieved
across the closely-coupled loading probes without affecting
the root of the wire. This is also analogous to the analyti-
cal predictions. As shown in Fig. 1(a), the ratio of bending
moments of loading point B (MB ) and root A (MA ) analyti-
cally can be expressed in terms of span ratio (a/ l) for small
deflection as MB /MA = (1 − a/ l)(2 + a/ l)/(1 + a/ l). For
small a/ l ratio, this clearly shows that the bending moment
at loading point B is higher than that of root A. As for ex-
amples, MB /MA = 1.59 at a/ l = 0.15 and MB /MA = 1.37
at a/ l = 0.24. In P –δ relationships for all conditions, we
Small-span bending test for determination of elastic-plastic properties of ultrathin Pt wires
Fig. 4 (a) An example of the load-displacement relationship
(l = 60 µm, a = 10 µm). The deformation images of the wire at the
states A to C in (a) are respectively, shown in (b)–(d), and that after
unloading is shown in (e). Note that the wire was yielded under the
condition of the point B
could clearly observe the proportional limit like point B as
shown in Fig. 4(a), from which the nonlinear behavior for
P –δ relations started. The nonlinear relationship for P and
δ is found to be due to the plastic deformation of the wire
and the geometric nonlinearity, i.e., movement of the speci-
men into the bending span.
Figure 5(a) shows the P –δ relations for various com-
bination of l and a together with the results of FEA after
289
Fig. 5 (a) The P –δ relations for various combination of l and a to-
gether with the results of FEA after nonlinear fitting. The distributions
of (b) stress and (c) plastic strain of the wire along diameter at the
location of bending are obtained by FEA
nonlinear fitting. The results of FEA are in good agreement
with their corresponding experimental measurements, and
the facts indicated that the nonlinear fittings up to a large de-
formation range were successfully achieved. In other words,
(1) and (2) were valid for describing the mechanical behav-
ior of the examined Pt wires. In P –δ relation as shown in
Fig. 5(a), the point A indicates the first point of nonlinearity,
which is considered here as the yield point and the point B
indicates a state of large plastic loading. The distributions
of axial stress along the diameter parallel to the direction
of loading for the two states A and B were determined by
FEA and they are presented in Fig. 5(b). The stress distri-
bution in the wire at the yield point has slight difference
with that considered for determining σY analytically; see
Fig. 1(b). Therefore, without using FEA, the value of σY de-
termined from (5) will be rough and it is found around 14%
290
Fig. 6 (a) E vs. a/ l. (b) σY vs. a/ l. (c) E  vs. a/ l. The available
values for bulk Pt are shown in the figures
higher than the FEA estimation. Figure 5(c) shows the dis-
tributions of equivalent plastic strain of these loading states
A and B. The distribution for state A indicates that the full
cross-section except a narrow part at the center of the wire
suffers plastic strain. From the figure it is also clear that the
plastic strain at the loading point increases with the increase
in probe displacement.
Figures 6(a) to (c) display the determined values of E, σY
and E  as a function of a/ l, respectively. In the figures,
the values reported for bulk Pt are also shown. The average
value of E was 159 ± 38 GPa, and the value is close to that
of the reported bulk Pt [24]. On the other hand, the values of
σY vary and the values were divided in to two groups. The
average value of σY for group 1 was 407 ± 74 MPa and that
for group 2 was 693 ± 107 MPa. Both the average values of
σY were quite higher than the reported yield stress of bulk
Pt [24]. The values of E  did not vary and the average value
H. Tohmyoh et al.
was found as 17.6 ± 2.5 GPa. In the present experiments,
the values of E and E  did not vary depending on the sam-
ple. From these experimental facts, we concluded that the
difference of σY for each group was clear difference among
the samples and this might be brought by the difference in
the crystalline structure of the samples. Although the bulk
Pt is usually show perfectly plastic behavior, the examined
ultrathin Pt wire showed work hardening effect. This may be
due to the special crystalline structure of the Pt wire, i.e., the
bamboo structure. Few grain boundaries were existed in the
testing section on the wire and this attributed higher resis-
tance for movement of atoms. As mentioned earlier, in the
nonlinear FEA the probe-sample friction coefficient was as-
sumed to be 0.2. If the friction coefficient is changed from
0.2 to 0.3, only about 10% decrease in the values of σY and
E  is observed for getting best fit of FEA data to the exper-
imental data points. Therefore, the value of E  as evaluated
(17.6 GPa) is observed reasonably a high value compared to
the bulk Pt.
5 Conclusions
We have realized the effectiveness of the typical three-point
bending test of ultrathin Pt wires having the nominal diame-
ter of 625 nm. The testing scheme also provides the option of
video recording of the deformation patterns of the wires. The
local plastic deformation in the wire was successfully in-
duced with the closely-coupled force probes. Young’s mod-
ulus of the ultrathin Pt wires was determined from the exper-
imental load-displacement relationship. Moreover, the yield
stress and hardening modulus of the wires were determined
by fitting the load-displacement relationships obtained by
the finite-element analyses with experimental ones. The ex-
amined Pt wires showed higher yield stress as compared
with bulk Pt and work hardening effect due to their crys-
talline structures.
Acknowledgements The authors thank Mr. H. Takeda and Mr. T.
Muramatsu for their help in arrangement of the experimental setup.
This work was supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S)
18106003 and by Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (A) 21686012.
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