New Features in Crystal Orientation and Phase Mapping for Transmission Electron Microscopy

Abstract

ACOM/TEM is an automated electron diffraction pattern indexing tool that enables the structure, phase and crystallographic orientation of materials to be routinely determined. The software package, which is part of ACOM/TEM, has substantially evolved over the last fifteen years and has pioneered numerous additional functions with the constant objective of improving its capabilities to make the tremendous amount of information contained in the diffraction patterns easily available to the user. Initially devoted to the analysis of local crystallographic texture, and as an alternative to both X-ray pole figure measurement and EBSD accessories for scanning electron microscopes, it has rapidly proven itself effective to distinguish multiple different phases contained within a given sample, including amorphous phases. Different strategies were developed to bypass the inherent limitations of transmission electron diffraction patterns, such as 180° ambiguities or the complexity of patterns produced from overlapping grains. Post processing algorithms have also been developed to improve the angular resolution and to increase the computing rate. The present paper aims to review some of these facilities. On-going works on 3D reconstruction are also introduced.