New Capabilities for the TEM: Automatic Orientation Measurement and Nanocrystal Grain Maps

Extract

Orientation Imaging Microscopy (OIM) is a rapid and spatially specific technique for automatically measuring individual crystallographic orientations in a polycrystalline sample. The technique is based on electron backscatter diffraction in the scanning electron microscope (SEM). While the OIM technique has seen many applications to the investigation of structure/ property relationships in polycrystalline materials, with grain sizes ranging from millimeters to submicron, it is not easily applied to the characterization of microstructures at the nanometer scale due to the inherent resolution limitations of the SEM. Thus, a complementary technique for the transmission electron microscope (TEM) would be advantageous for the study of local orientation in submicron structures such as those that exist in nanocrystalline materials and deformed materials.