EBSD and Subtle Crystallographic Differences - A Study of Resolving Interlayer Spacings in Nb-Ni and Nb-Co mu-phases
Abstract
In ordered intermetallics, slight variations in lattice site occupancy and specific interlayer spacings have been identified as the sources of significant changes in critical resolved shear stress and therefore how a given phase may affect alloy properties. So far, atom positions and lattice site occupancies have traditionally been characterised by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), which are methods that offer either local detail or high statistical significance but not both. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), by contrast, provides high spatial resolution across large sample areas and therefore, has the potential to enable the local investigation of interlayer spacing and site lattice occupancy with improved statistical reliability. The objectives of the study are to benchmark EBSDs capability for resolving these subtle features and to correlate them with compositional and mechanical properties. In this case study, we therefore show that EBSD can resolve key crystallographic features of mu-phase intermetallics, specifically interlayer spacings. We combine pattern matching with large-scale dynamical simulations of template libraries guided by XRD based information on lattice parameters. For this, we generate structures that vary in the spacing between triple-layer and Kagome layer and in the site lattice occupancy of the 3a site. This approach successfully predicts the change of interlayer spacing between Kagome and triple layers in Nb-Co and Nb-Ni mu-phases, in good agreement with XRD and HR-TEM.
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BibTeX
@misc{berners2026ebsd,
title = {{EBSD and Subtle Crystallographic Differences - A Study of Resolving Interlayer Spacings in Nb-Ni and Nb-Co mu-phases}},
author = {Lukas Berners and Nisa Ulumuddin and Annika Baum and Silvia Richter and Khalil Rejiba and Joshua Spille and Siyuan Zhang and Christina Scheu and Joachim Mayer and Benjamin Berkels and T. Ben Britton and Sandra Korte-Kerzel},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2608.01210},
eprint = {2608.01210},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.01210},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - EBSD and Subtle Crystallographic Differences - A Study of Resolving Interlayer Spacings in Nb-Ni and Nb-Co mu-phases
AU - Lukas Berners
AU - Nisa Ulumuddin
AU - Annika Baum
AU - Silvia Richter
AU - Khalil Rejiba
AU - Joshua Spille
AU - Siyuan Zhang
AU - Christina Scheu
AU - Joachim Mayer
AU - Benjamin Berkels
AU - T. Ben Britton
AU - Sandra Korte-Kerzel
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/27
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2608.01210
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.01210
AB - In ordered intermetallics, slight variations in lattice site occupancy and specific interlayer spacings have been identified as the sources of significant changes in critical resolved shear stress and therefore how a given phase may affect alloy properties. So far, atom positions and lattice site occupancies have traditionally been characterised by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), which are methods that offer either local detail or high statistical significance but not both. Electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), by contrast, provides high spatial resolution across large sample areas and therefore, has the potential to enable the local investigation of interlayer spacing and site lattice occupancy with improved statistical reliability. The objectives of the study are to benchmark EBSDs capability for resolving these subtle features and to correlate them with compositional and mechanical properties. In this case study, we therefore show that EBSD can resolve key crystallographic features of mu-phase intermetallics, specifically interlayer spacings. We combine pattern matching with large-scale dynamical simulations of template libraries guided by XRD based information on lattice parameters. For this, we generate structures that vary in the spacing between triple-layer and Kagome layer and in the site lattice occupancy of the 3a site. This approach successfully predicts the change of interlayer spacing between Kagome and triple layers in Nb-Co and Nb-Ni mu-phases, in good agreement with XRD and HR-TEM.
ER -