Pattern Matching Workflows for EBSD Data Analysis: Quartz Chirality Mapping

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how pattern matching in EBSD data analysis enables detailed imaging of quartz microstructure, revealing intra-grain inversion domains and chirality with high spatial and orientation resolution.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach using pattern matching for EBSD to analyze chiral phases, specifically applied to quartz, enhancing microstructural characterization capabilities.

Findings

Inversion domains of quartz identified via EBSD

Chirality mapped with high spatial resolution

Pattern matching improves EBSD microstructure analysis

Abstract

Pattern matching approaches to electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) in the scanning electron microscope (SEM) provide qualitatively new possibilities for the microstructural analysis of chiral non-centrosymmetric phases due to the influence of dynamical electron diffraction effects on the formation of EBSD Kikuchi patterns. In the present study, we analyze the microstructure of polycrystalline alpha-quartz in an agate mineral sample. We identify characteristic intra-grain inversion domains of different handedness which are well-known from classical polarized light microscopy. As a result, the handedness-resolved microstructure of quartz can be imaged with the spatial and orientation resolution provided by EBSD in the SEM.