Monte Carlo Simulation of Spatial Resolution for Electron Backscattered Diffraction (EBSD) with Application to Two-Phase Materials

The study of texture and grain boundary misorientation in multiphase materials has been greatly benefited from the recent automation of the electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) technique. With this technique, each phase in a multiphase material can be individually sampled and analyzed. This is of great significance and interest in the study of thin films, inclusions and multiphase alloys. Spatial resolution, which depends on experimental conditions such as beam energy and specimen tilt, and the material being studied, is critical in order to determine the orientation of different phases in multiphase materials.The Monte Carlo (MC) method has been effectively used to investigate spatial resolution in single phase materials. In this paper, the MC simulation is modified and applied to two-phase geometries. For a bulk two phase (Al/Au) specimen, the coordinate system was defined such that the x-axis was normal to the electron beam and the interface, y-axis parallel to the interface and coplanar to the beam direction, and z-axis perpendicular to the specimen surface which was tilted 70°, as shown in Fig. 1.