Application of transmission EBSD on high topography surface Aluminum thin film

Recent development of Electron Backscattering Diffraction (EBSD) technique has advanced to allow users to perform Transmission Kikuchi diffraction (TKD), and also known as transmission-EBSD (t-EBSD) with the existing conventional EBSD detector, and field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). More importantly, this technique has been known for the significant improvement in spatial resolution. In this paper, this technique has been employed to characterize a high topography surface Aluminum sample containing submicron or smaller grain sizes, which is a limitation to the conventional EBSD method because a conventional EBSD method requires relative smooth and flat surfaces. The objective of this paper is to illustrate the successful employment of t-EBSD technique, to obtain the mean grain size of Aluminum prepared by Physical Vapour Deposition (PVD), as well as to determine percentage of grains orientation grown in <;111> parallel to the growth direction to the silicon substrate or simply the normal direction (ND) as specify in during the ESBD analysis run. This paper will account on how the sample was prepared by means of FIB to achieve and electron transparent TEM foil. Results has shown that 81% of the desired <;111> orientation parallel to the ND direction (i.e. <;111>//ND) and a mean grain size of 0.317um were determined, with more than 50% of the area mapped contain grains equivalent diameter less than submicron size. Therefore, t-EBSD is a relatively effective application towards this study because this does not compromise on the spatial resolution less than submicron scales.