An ultramicrotome was used in order to measure the work to section, W sub s , during sectioning of polymers (PS, PC, PMMA, epoxy). W sub s was measured as a function of section thickness for five different amorphous polymers in the glassy state. W sub s was found to increase with increasing section thickness and varied from approx15-100 J/m exp 2 depending on the material and section thickness. It is believed that this technique is applicable for quantification of energy dissipation at a very local level in polymers. The reason is that the sections are very thin (as thin as 60 nm) and therefore only a very small volume of material is believed to be activated during the crack propagation. This is supported by the fact that W sub s approaches the smallest possible value, the intrinsic fracture energy, G sub 0 , for very small section thicknesses