Gazing at crystal balls: Electron backscatter diffraction pattern analysis and cross correlation on the sphere

TL;DR

This paper introduces two novel spherical analysis algorithms for electron backscatter diffraction patterns, improving orientation determination and pattern analysis, validated through simulations and experimental data from ferritic iron.

Contribution

The paper presents two new algorithms for EBSD pattern analysis: band localisation with the spherical Radon transform and orientation determination via spherical cross correlation.

Findings

Algorithms achieve high accuracy in simulated patterns

Effective orientation determination demonstrated on experimental data

Spherical analysis reveals detailed crystallographic information

Abstract

We present spherical analysis of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) patterns with two new algorithms: (1) band localisation and band profile analysis using the spherical Radon transform; (2) orientation determination using spherical cross correlation. These new approaches are formally introduced and their accuracies are determined using dynamically simulated patterns. We demonstrate their utility with an experimental dataset obtained from ferritic iron. Our results indicate that the analysis of EBSD patterns on the surface of the sphere provides an elegant method of revealing information from these rich sources of crystallographic data.