Plastic deformation of submicron-sized crystals studied by in-situ Kikuchi diffraction and dislocation imaging

► We performed in-situ plastic deformation of submicron-sized copper single crystals. ► We measured in-situ and ex-situ crystal rotation and imaged dislocation activities. ► We measured crystallographic orientations and analyzed dislocation Burgers vectors. ► Crystals' rotation in agreement with slip of dislocations with highest Schmid factor. ► These results in good agreement with millimeter-scale samples' deformation behavior.