Materials Measurement

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Electron Backscatter Patterns (EBSP)

Electron backscatter diffraction is used to provide crystallographic and phase information on sample materials. A specimen of the material being tested is placed beneath a stationary electron beam, which could be obtained from a scanning electron microscope, and then tilted so that the electrons hitting the sample will be scattered onto a detector. This creates a 2D pattern on the detector, which can be interpreted to yield a variety of microstructural information about the sample.

An EBSP system can also be used to scan a region of a specimen to produce an orientation map. Either the sample or the electron beam can be moved, and at each point an EBSP is generated. These patterns can be analysed for their phase, orientation, and location data.

One Grain or Two?

Select this link to discover more about the difficulties of measuring grain size, and the advantages that EBSP offers over other methods. This section is a modified version of Austin Day's article "One grain or two?" that appeared in the January 1998 issue of Materials World (Institute of Materials)

EBSP Simulator

Select this link to see a 3D model of an EBSP pattern mapped onto a sphere. This allows the EBSP data to be more intuitively visualised.