An Analysis of Kikuchi Lines Observed with a RHEED Apparatus for a TiO2-Terminated SrTiO3 (001) Crystal

In this study, electron diffraction patterns observed under high vacuum conditions for an SrTiO3 surface were interpreted in detail while paying special attention to the features of inelastic effects. The surface of the SrTiO2 was carefully prepared to enforce its termination with single domains of TiO2 layers at the top. The inelastic patterns were interpreted using analytical models. Two types of Kikuchi lines are recognized in this paper: those which can be described with the Bragg law and those which appear due to surface wave resonance effects. However, we also discuss that there exists a formal connection between the two types of the Kikuchi lines observed.

Diffraction of Electrons and Neutrons

Electron scattering, significantly stronger than that for X-rays, is sensitive to surfaces and small volumes of materials. Low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) provides information on surface reconstruction and the arrangement of adsorbed atoms. Reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED) probes surface crystallography, and monitors, in situ, mechanisms of thin film growth. Transmission electron diffraction reveals a planar cross-section of the reciprocal lattice, where intensities are products of the structure and lattice amplitude factors determined by the overall shape of the specimen. The amplitude of any diffracted beam at the exit surface oscillates with thickness (fringes) and the excitation error (bend contours). Selected area diffraction produce spot or ring patterns, where low-index zone-axis orientations reflect the symmetry of the crystal, and double-diffraction shows positive intensities even for reflections forbidden by extinction rules. Kikuchi lines appear as pairs of dark and bright lines, and help in tilting the specimen. A focused probe produces convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED), useful for symmetry analysis at nanoscale resolution. Neutrons interact with the nucleus and the magnetic moment of the atom via the spin of the neutron; the latter finds particular use in studies of magnetic order. The atomic scattering factor for neutrons shows negligible angular dependence.

CBED Tools for semi-automatic measurement of crystal thicknesses

Convergent-beam electron diffraction (CBED) is one of the most popular techniques to measure crystal thickness. The traditional measurement involves linear fitting of several fringes across the CBED disc, but for a thin crystal with fewer than three fringes the usefulness of this method will be limited. CBED Tools, a free plugin for the DigitalMicrograph software, provides a fast (∼1–2 min) and accurate algorithm to measure the crystal thickness on the basis of the linear fitting method, but it is also capable of determining the crystal thickness when it is very thin and only one fringe or part of the first fringe is recorded. CBED Tools can also be utilized to handle the severely distorted CBED pattern obtained when the zero-order Laue zone Kikuchi lines overlap with the fringes.

EBSD Analysis of SmCoFeCuZr Alloys

In the present study, EBSD was used for the characterization of alloys used for production of SmFeCoCuZr magnets. EBSD is adequate for texture analysis, but may give misleading results for phase identification. EBSD is not suitable for identifying phases with very similar crystalline structure, especially when the phases are crystallographically coherent, due to the superposition of Kikuchi lines. As consequence, for phase identification EBSD should be considered a complementary technique to other methods, as for example x-ray diffraction (XRD).

Automatic Crystallographic Characterization in a Transmission Electron Microscope: Applications to Twinning Induced Plasticity Steels and Al Thin Films

A new automated crystallographic orientation mapping tool in a transmission electron microscope technique, which is based on pattern matching between every acquired electron diffraction pattern and precalculated templates, has been used for the microstructural characterization of nondeformed and deformed aluminum thin films and twinning-induced plasticity steels. The increased spatial resolution and the use of electron diffraction patterns rather than Kikuchi lines make this tool very appropriate to characterize fine grained and deformed microstructures.