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Accurately measuring the energy of backscattered electrons (BSEs) in electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) patterns remains a longstanding challenge. In this study, researchers present a new energy-resolved EBSD method that leverages a monolithic active pixel sensor (MAPS) direct detector with single-electron counting. By calibrating detector response across primary beam energies, the team successfully quantified individual BSE energies in Si(100) using a 12 keV beam.
The results show a wide energy distribution extending down to 3 keV and an angular dependence that closely matches Monte Carlo simulations. Detailed energy maps reveal subtle changes in Kikuchi band contrast, and narrow-band energy filtering significantly improves pattern clarity. Surprisingly, even electrons that have undergone substantial energy loss still contributed useable diffraction signal.
This technique represents a major advance in EBSD, offering new opportunities to probe diffraction contrast mechanisms and improve the precision of crystallographic analysis.
Read the full preprint here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20105
Figure 8: Top: Raw EBSD patterns acquired at 12 keV primary beam energy using (a–c) energy-filtered counting mode for three energy intervals (2–8, 8–10, and 10–13 keV), and unfiltered patterns obtained in (d) counting and (e) integrating modes. Note that (d) should not be interpreted as the average of (a), (b), and (c), as electrons with energies above 13 keV, arising mainly from multi-pixel events, are detected in the unfiltered counting mode. Only the same dark reference background is applied to all the EBSD patterns, which is acquired with the detector positioned in the chamber, the electron beam blanked, and all photon sources inactive. All patterns were normalized to an average of 2,000 electrons per pixel by adjusting the number of summed frames to ensure comparable SNRs. The unfiltered integrating-mode pattern uses the same number of frames as the unfiltered counting-mode case. Bottom: corresponding log-power 2D FFT spectra.