Electron Backscatter Diffraction (ebsd) – the Method and Its Applications in Materials Science and Engineering

The present work gives a brief overview of the current status of the electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) technique. The fundamentals of the production of Kikuchi patterns are first discussed. An experimental set-up for the automated obtaining and processing EBSD patterns in scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is subsequently described and the relevant calibration and automatic Kikuchi pattern recognition procedures are briefly discussed. The derivation of both a crystallite orientation and a misorientation between two crystallites from an EBSD pattern is also described and various ways of the graphical representation of these characteristics are summarised. Several practical examples of the application of the EBSD technique in the field of metallic materials science and engineering are finally presented.