Experimental measurements were used to investigate the effect of residual stress on the nanoindentation of (100) copper single crystal. Equi-biaxial tensile and compressive stresses were applied to the copper single crystal using a special designed apparatus. It was found that residual stresses greatly affected peak load, curvature of the loading curve, elastically recovered depth, residual depth, indentation work, pile-up amount and contact area. The Suresh & Giannakopoulos and Lee & Kwon methods were used to calculate the residual stresses from load-depth data and morphology observation of nanoindents using atomic force microscopy. Comparison of the obtained results with stress values from strain gage showed that the residual stresses analyzed from the Suresh & Giannakopoulos model agreed well with the applied stresses. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.