At what characteristic length scale does classical continuum elasticity cease to accurately describe small deformation mechanical behavior? The two dominant physical mechanisms that lead to size dependency of elastic behavior at the nanoscale are surface energy effects and nonlocal interactions. The latter arises due to the discrete structure of matter and the fluctuations in the interatomic forces that are smeared out within the phenomenological elastic modulus at coarser sizes. While surface energy effects have been well characterized in the literature, little is known about the length scales at which nonlocal effects manifest for different materials. Using a combination of empirical molecular dynamics and lattice dynamics (empirical and ab initio), we provide estimates of nonlocal elasticity length scales for various classes of materials: semiconductors, metals, amorphous solids, and polymers.

• Received 7 February 2007
• Corrected 11 May 2007

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.195504