Small scale fracture fracture mechanics specimens are used to measure failure properties and their characteristics for thin films at the  submicron scale. The methodology developed to create sharp cracks in MEMS is shown below. See our Publications page for references and details.

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Deformation field at a crack tip during crack growth in polysilicon under Mode I loading recorded by AFM/DIC method.
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RELEVANT PUBLICATIONS

1. I. Chasiotis, S.W. Cho, K. Jonnalagadda, "Fracture Toughness and Crack Growth in Polycrystalline Silicon", Journal of Applied Mechanics 74 (5) , pp. 714-722, (2006)
    
2. K. Jonnalagadda, S. Cho, I. Chasiotis, T.A. Friedman, and J. Sullivan, “Effect of Intrinsic Stress Gradient on the Effective Mode-I Fracture Toughness of Amorphous Diamond-like Carbon Films for MEMS,” Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids 56, pp. 388-401, (2008)

College of Engineering   University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign