High resolution transmission electron diffraction method for on-line texture analysis

A method for texture analysis with spacial resolution in practice down to typically 10 nm has been developed. The Transmission Kikuchi line electron Diffraction (TKD) pattern utilized in this technique is registered through the microscope window by an external CCD camera focused on the tilted fluorescent screen. Patterns from grains and sub-grains may on-line be systematically collected and indexed by a software package giving grain orientation, inter-grain rotation angles, Euler angles, pole and inverse pole figures. The method is demonstrated by analyses of the cube texture in a commercial AlMnMg alloy. The strength of the method is high resolution and reasonable speed, and non-interference with the standard microscope modes.