Characterization of Ultra-fine Grained and Nanocrystalline Materials Using Transmission Kikuchi Diffraction

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Microscopy
• Crystallography

Background:

• Characterizing ultra-fine grained (UFG) and nanocrystalline materials presents challenges for traditional techniques like electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) due to insufficient spatial resolution.
• Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) offers high resolution but suffers from slow data acquisition rates, limiting analysis area.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce Transmission Kikuchi Diffraction (TKD) as a novel characterization technique for UFG and nanocrystalline materials.
• To demonstrate TKD's capability to achieve high spatial resolution (down to 2 nm) within a scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with a standard EBSD system.

Main Methods:

• Development and implementation of the Transmission Kikuchi Diffraction (TKD) technique.
• Utilizing a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with a standard electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) system for TKD analysis.
• Characterization of various materials, including metal alloys and minerals, using the TKD method.

Main Results:

• The Transmission Kikuchi Diffraction (TKD) technique achieves a spatial resolution of approximately 2 nm.
• TKD enables the analysis of microstructures in UFG and nanocrystalline materials that are difficult to study with traditional EBSD.
• Demonstrated flexibility and applicability of TKD across a diverse range of materials.

Conclusions:

• Transmission Kikuchi Diffraction (TKD) provides a high-resolution, efficient method for microstructure analysis of UFG and nanocrystalline materials.
• TKD overcomes the limitations of traditional EBSD and TEM for these material types.
• The technique is versatile and applicable to a broad spectrum of materials, enhancing microstructure characterization capabilities.