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Automated Grain Mapping Using Wide Angle Convergent Beam Electron Diffraction in Transmission Electron Microscope for Nanomaterials

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2011

Vineet Kumar
Vineet Kumar*
Affiliation:
816A Beatty Village Rd., Latrobe, PA 15650, USA
*
Corresponding author. E-mail: vineet.bijnori@gmail.com
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Abstract

The grain size statistics, commonly derived from the grain map of a material sample, are important microstructure characteristics that greatly influence its properties. The grain map for nanomaterials is usually obtained manually by visual inspection of the transmission electron microscope (TEM) micrographs because automated methods do not perform satisfactorily. While the visual inspection method provides reliable results, it is a labor intensive process and is often prone to human errors. In this article, an automated grain mapping method is developed using TEM diffraction patterns. The presented method uses wide angle convergent beam diffraction in the TEM. The automated technique was applied on a platinum thin film sample to obtain the grain map and subsequently derive grain size statistics from it. The grain size statistics obtained with the automated method were found in good agreement with the visual inspection method.

Keywords

grain mappinggrain sizeTEMthin film
Type
Software and Techniques Development
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 17 , Issue 6 , December 2011 , pp. 859 - 865
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2011

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