In the past three decades, we have witnessed the explosive development of micro/nano science and technology, where remarkable research efforts have been made in synthesizing of materials and fabricating of devices at micro- and nano-scale. The unusual mechanical behaviors of materials and devices with reduced their size and dimension pose the open questions to the researchers, which expand the framework of mechanics by advancing the theory, as well as modeling and experimental tools. Researchers in worldwide have been actively involved into this exciting area, making remarkable contributions to measure mechanical parameters and understand the mechanical behaviors of materials and devices at micro- and nano-scale. Micro optical method, as a full field, real-time and non-destructive measurement technique, is one of the earliest techniques used to measure the mechanical properties of materials at micro scale. So far, the optical methods are still an exciting research area in the field of mechanical property measurement of materials and devices at such small scale, even with the further reduction of the size of the research materials and devices, and their experimental platform has been promoted to various scanning microscope platforms, such as scanning electron microscope (SEM), scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM), atomic force microscope (AFM) and so on. This article reviews the research progress of optical techniques developed for the measurement of mechanical properties of materials and devices at micro- and nano-scale, with the aim to clarify the measurement principles and applications of optical methods in small scale, consisting of the experimental equipment, clamping and loading, deformation carriers or marks, optical methods including the holography, speckle and moiré, and finally to outline the perspectives in this fast-evolving field.

过去30年，我们见证了微纳米科学技术的爆炸式发展，在材料合成和微纳米尺度器件制造方面取得了显着的研究成果。尺寸和尺寸减小的材料和设备的异常机械行为向研究人员提出了悬而未决的问题，他们通过推进理论以及建模和实验工具扩展了力学框架。世界各地的研究人员一直积极参与这个令人兴奋的领域，为测量机械参数和了解材料和设备在微米和纳米尺度上的机械行为做出了显着贡献。微光学法作为一种全场、实时、无损的测量技术，是最早用于在微观尺度上测量材料机械性能的技术之一。迄今为止，即使在研究材料和器件的尺寸进一步缩小的情况下，在如此小规模的材料和器件力学性能测量领域，光学方法仍然是一个令人兴奋的研究领域，其实验平台也得到了推广。到各种扫描显微镜平台，如扫描电子显微镜（SEM）、扫描透射电子显微镜（STEM）、原子力显微镜（AFM）等。本文综述了微纳米尺度材料和器件力学性能测量的光学技术研究进展，旨在阐明光学方法在小尺度测量原理和应用。