Electron backscatter diraction

complementary techniques within the SEM for phase

discrimination. Traditionally these types of studies have
been carried out using X-ray diraction (XRD), neutron
diraction and/or electron diraction in a TEM.
Experimentally EBSD is conducted using a SEM
equipped with an EBSD detector containing at least a
phosphor screen, compact lens and low light CCD camera. Commercially available EBSD systems typically
come with one of two dierent CCD cameras: for fast
measurements the CCD chip has a native resolution of
640480 pixels; for slower, and more sensitive measurements, the CCD chip resolution can go up to 16001200
pixels. The biggest advantage of the high-resolution detectors is their higher sensitivity and therefore the information within each diraction pattern can be analysed in
more detail. For texture and orientation measurements,
the diraction patterns are binned in order to reduce their
size and reduce computational times. Modern EBSD systems can index patterns at up to 1800 patterns / second.
This enables very rapid and rich microstructural maps to
be generated.

An electron backscatter diraction pattern

For an EBSD measurement a at/polished crystalline

specimen is placed in the SEM chamber at a highly
tilted angle (~70 from horizontal) towards the diraction camera, to increase the contrast in the resultant electron backscatter diraction pattern. The phosphor screen
is located within the specimen chamber of the SEM at
an angle o approximately 90 to the pole piece and is
coupled to a compact lens which focuses the image from
the phosphor screen onto the CCD camera. In this conguration, some of the electrons which enter the sample
backscatter and may escape. As these electrons leave the
sample, they may exit at the Bragg condition related to
the spacing of the periodic atomic lattice planes of the
crystalline structure and diract. These diracted electrons can escape the material and some will collide and
excite the phosphor causing it to uoresce.
Inside the SEM, the electron beam is focussed onto the
surface of a crystalline sample. The electrons enter the
sample and some may backscatter. Escaping electrons
may exit near to the Bragg angle and diract to form
Kikuchi bands which correspond to each of the lattice
diracting crystal planes. If the system geometry is well
described, it is possible to relate the bands present in the
diraction pattern to the underlying crystal phase and orientation of the material within the electron interaction
volume. Each band can be indexed individually by the
Miller indices of the diracting plane which formed it. In
most materials, only three bands/planes which intercept

An electron backscatter diraction pattern of monocrystalline silicon, taken at 20 kV with a eld-emission electron source

Electron backscatter diraction (EBSD) is a

microstructural-crystallographic characterisation technique to study any crystalline or polycrystalline material.
The technique involves understanding the structure, crystal orientation and phase of materials in the Scanning
Electron Microscope (SEM). Typically it is used to
explore microstructures, revealing texture, defects, grain
morphology and deformation. It can be combined with
1

2
are required to describe a unique solution to the crystal
orientation (based upon their interplanar angles) and most
commercial systems use look up tables with international
crystal data bases to perform indexing. This crystal orientation relates the orientation of each sampled point to
a reference crystal orientation.
While this 'geometric' description related to the kinematic solution (using the Bragg condition) is very powerful and useful for orientation and texture analysis, it
only describes the geometry of the crystalline lattice
and ignores many physical processes involved within the
diracting material. To adequately describe ner features
within the EBSP, one must use a many beam dynamical
model (e.g. the variation in band intensities in an experimental pattern does not t the kinematic solution related
to the structure factor).

3 ORIENTATION MAPPING
entations for a triplet. More bands are included that reduces the number of candidate orientations. As the number of bands increases, the number of possible orientations converge ultimately to one solution. The 't' between the measured orientation and the captured pattern
can be determined.

2 Pattern Centre

In order to relate the orientation of a crystal, much like

in X-ray diraction, the geometry of the system must be
known. In particular the pattern centre, which describes
both the distance of the interaction volume to the detector and the location of the nearest point between the
phosphor and the sample on the phosphor screen. Early
work utilised a single crystal of known orientation being
inserted into the SEM chamber and a particular feature
of the EBSP was known to correspond to the pattern cen1 Indexing
tre. Later developments involved exploiting various geometric relationships between the generation of an EBSP
Often, the rst step in the EBSD process after pattern
and the chamber geometry (shadow casting and phosphor
collection is indexing. This allows for identication of the
movement).
crystal orientation at the single volume of the sample from
where the pattern was collected. With EBSD software, Unfortunately each of these methods are cumbersome
pattern bands are typically detected via a mathematical and can be prone to some systematic errors for a genroutine using a modied Hough transform, in which ev- eral operator. Typically they can not be easily utilised in
ery pixel in Hough space denotes a unique line/band in the modern SEMs with multiple designated uses. Thus most
EBSP. The Hough transform is used to enable band de- commercial EBSD systems utilise the indexing algorithm
tection, which are dicult to locate by computer in the combined with an iterative movement of both crystal orioriginal EBSP. Once the band locations have been de- entation and suggested pattern centre location. Minimistected it is possible to relate these locations to the underly- ing the t between bands located within experimental pating crystal orientation, as angles between bands represent terns and those in look up tables tends to converge on the
angles between lattice planes. Thus when the position / pattern centre location to an accuracy of ~0.51% of the
angles between three bands are known an orientation so- pattern width.
lution can be determined. In highly symmetric materials,
typically more than three bands are utilised to obtain and
verify the orientation measurement.

3 Orientation mapping

There are two leading methods of indexing performed

by most commercial EBSD software: triplet voting; and
minimising the 't' between the experimental pattern and
a computationally determined orientation.
Triplet voting involves identify multiple 'triplets associated with dierent solutions to the crystal orientation;
each crystal orientation determined from each triplet receives one vote. Should four bands identify the same crystal orientation then four (four choose three) votes will
be cast for that particular solution. Thus the candidate
orientation with the highest number of votes will be the
most likely solution to the underlying crystal orientation
present. The ratio of votes for the solution chosen as
compared to the total number of votes describes the condence in the underlying solution. Care must be taken
in interpreting this 'condence index' as some pseudosymmetric orientations may result in low condence for
one candidate solution vs. another.
Minimising the t involves starting with all possible ori-

The map in the acquire process.

3
is used for indexing of each point. Each pattern is indexed by only one phase and maps displaying clearly distinguished phases are generated. The interaction volumes
for EDS and EBSD are signicantly dierent (on the order of micrometers compared to tens of nanometers) and
the shape of these volumes using a highly tilted sample
may have implications on algorithms for phase discrimination.
EBSD when used together with other in-SEM techniques
such as cathodoluminescence (CL), wavelength dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (WDS) and/or energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) can provide a deeper insight into the specimens properties. For example, the
minerals calcite (limestone) and aragonite (shell) have
Contamination on the sample after the EBSD mapping.
the same chemical composition calcium carbonate
(CaCO3 ) therefore EDS/WDS cannot tell them apart, but
EBSD can be used to nd the crystal orientation of the they have dierent microcrystalline structures so EBSD
material located within the incident electron beams in- can dierentiate between them.
teraction volume. Thus by scanning the electron beam in
a prescribed fashion (typically in a square or hexagonal
grid, correcting for the image foreshortening due to the 5 See also
sample tilt) results in many rich microstructural maps.
Crystallography
These maps can spatially describe the crystal orientation
of the material being interrogated and can be used to ex Electron crystallography
amine microtexture and sample morphology. Some of
these maps describe grain orientation, grain boundary,
Diraction
diraction pattern (image) quality. Various statistical
tools can be used to measure the average misorientation,
grain size, and crystallographic texture. From this dataset 6 References
numerous maps, charts and plots can be generated.
From orientation data, a wealth of information can be
devised that aids in the understanding of the samples
microstructure and processing history. Recent developments include understanding: the prior texture of parent phases at elevated temperature; the storage and residual deformation after mechanical testing; the population
of various microstructural features, including precipitates
and grain boundary character.

Integrated EBSD/EDS mapping

When simultaneous EDS/EBSD collection can be

achieved, the capabilities of both techniques can be enhanced. There are applications where sample chemistry
or phase cannot be dierentiated via EDS alone because
of similar composition; and structure cannot be solved
with EBSD alone because of ambiguous structure solutions. To accomplish integrated mapping, the analysis
area is scanned and at each point Hough peaks and EDS
region-of-interest counts are stored. Positions of phases
are determined in X-ray maps and measured EDS intensities are given in charts for each element. For each phase
the chemical intensity ranges are set to select the grains.
All patterns are then re-indexed o-line. The recorded
chemistry determines which phase / crystal structure le

7 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

7.1

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Electron backscatter diraction Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_backscatter_diffraction?oldid=666387821 Contributors: Edward, Stone, Chowbok, Karol Langner, I-hunter, Gene Nygaard, MarnetteD, Kolbasz, WouterBot, Alchemy pete, Jlittlet, Kkmurray, Reyk, Bluebot, Dr bab, Berland, Decltype, Nick Y., Bobblehead, Mhesselb, Nono64, Skier Dude, Jcwf, Nedrutland, BenBritton,
TaraN1013, Alexbot, Addbot, Tide rolls, Luckyz, AnomieBOT, Materialscientist, Xqbot, DSisyphBot, Pv42, FrescoBot, Jandalhandler,
Ltck, Alxmel, ZroBot, ChuispastonBot, Awesome42, Wasbeer, HRebsd, JSeay86 and Anonymous: 30

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