Residual stresses play a crucial role in determining material properties and behaviour, in terms of structural integrity under monotonic and cyclic loading, and for functional performance, in terms of capacitance, conductivity, band gap, and other characteristics. The methods for experimental residual stress analysis at the macro- and micro-scales are well established, but residual stress evaluation at the nanoscale faces major challenges, e.g. the need for sample sectioning to prepare thin lamellae, by its very nature introducing major modifications to the quantity being evaluated.

Residual stress analysis by micro-ring core Focused Ion Beam milling directly at sample surface offers lateral resolution better than 1 μm, and encodes information about residual stress depth variation. We report a new method for residual stress depth profiling at the resolution better than 50 nm by the application of a mathematically straightforward and robust approach based on the concept of eigenstrain. The results are validated by direct comparison with measurements by nano-focus synchrotron X-ray diffraction.