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Determining Grain Boundary Position and Geometry from EBSD Data: Limits of Accuracy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2021

David T. Fullwood Open the ORCID record for David T. Fullwood [Opens in a new window] ,
Sarah Sanderson ,
Sterling Baird ,
Jordan Christensen ,
Eric R. Homer  and
Oliver K. Johnson
David T. Fullwood*
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Sarah Sanderson
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Sterling Baird
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Jordan Christensen
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Eric R. Homer
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
Oliver K. Johnson
Affiliation:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
*
*Corresponding author: David T. Fullwood, E-mail: dfullwood@byu.edu
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Abstract

As the feature size of crystalline materials gets smaller, the ability to correctly interpret geometrical sample information from electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) data becomes more important. This paper uses the notion of transition curves, associated with line scans across grain boundaries (GBs), to correctly account for the finite size of the excitation volume (EV) in the determination of the geometry of the boundary. Various metrics arising from the EBSD data are compared to determine the best experimental proxy for actual numbers of backscattered electrons that are tracked in a Monte Carlo simulation. Consideration of the resultant curves provides an accurate method of determining GB position (at the sample surface) and indicates a significant potential for error in determining GB position using standard EBSD software. Subsequently, simple criteria for comparing experimental and simulated transition curves are derived. Finally, it is shown that the EV is too shallow for the curves to reveal subsurface geometry of the GB (i.e., GB inclination angle) for most values of GB inclination.

Keywords

EBSDexcitation volumegrain boundariesMonte CarlonickelSEM
Type
Software and Instrumentation
Information
Microscopy and Microanalysis , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 2022 , pp. 96 - 108
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Microscopy Society of America

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