Plasticity in small-sized extrinsic size effect

2 February 2011 now-commonly-known phenomenon ‘‘smaller is stronger.’ ’ Under-standing of this ‘‘extrinsic size effect’ ’ at small scales is not yet mature and is currently a topic of rigorous investigations. As both the intrinsic (i.e. microstructural) and extrinsic (i.e. sample size) dimensions play a non-trivial role in the mechanical properties and material deformation mechanisms, it is critical to develop an ⇑ Corresponding author