Subgrain structures characterized by electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD)

Abstract

Subgrain structures are frequently characterized by the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) method, which is both accurate and provides good statistics. This is essential to better understand the subgrain growth mechanisms and e.g. establish the driving forces and motilities for comparison with physically based models. However, there is no commercially available software which can provide adequate subgrain boundary maps necessary for e.g. size and misorientation analysis. Here, a method that produces such maps utilizing only commercially available software is presented. The clue is to provide the EBSD-software with a parameter that can be used to identify all subgrains. By combining various maps exported from the EBSD-software into photo editing software, a new map is made in which all subgrain boundaries are identified. Missing and incomplete boundaries are traced manually before a reconstructed subgrain map is generated and imported back into the EBSD-software. With this method, the built-in algorithms in the EBSD-software can be readily used to e.g. characterize subgrain growth in aluminium with respect to orientation, size and misorientation.