The landmark paper by Gleiter [1] redirected a significant portion of the global research efforts in materials science. The importance of this paper can be gauged by its 1300+ cita- tions and the thousands of papers that appeared on this topic since its publication. Actually, this paper was preceded by an earlier, lesser known Gleiter paper, from 1983 [2]. In this paper, Gleiter points out the outstanding possibilities of what he called then ‘‘microcrystalline materials’’. The name ‘‘nanocrystalline’’ has since taken over. The mechanical behavior of nanocrystalline materials has been the theme of approximately 500 publications. A significant number of review articles have been published. Table 1 shows.
