Combined EDS & EBSD for Microstructural Analysis

Phase Identification & Distribution Analysis of Oxide Ceramics

Zinc oxide (ZnO) ceramics are widely used in solar cell and varistor industries because of their super optoelectronic properties such as high transmittance and conductivity, and their pronounced piezoelectric effect.

As such, ZnO ceramics are the focus of intense research that aims to enhance the performance of this material even further via optimization of their physical properties.

In order to acheive this scientists need to develop a thorough understanding of the microstructure of ZnO ceramics and how microstructural features relate to bulk properties. For example, grain boundaries and orientations within the oxide influence the bulk conductivity and piezoelectric behavior. 

Combined EDS & EBSD with QUANTAX ED-XS

Our QUANTAX ED-XS system enables affordable combined EBSD/EDS characterization of the microstructural and compositional features of ceramic materials.  QUANTAX ED-XS can be used for a statistical analysis of grain boundaries and clean identification of major and minor phases.

QUANTAX ED-XS consists of our unique eFlash XS detector, an XFlash® EDS detector and integrated ESPRIT software for seamless combined EDS and EBSD analysis. The system is a more affordable alternative to conventional EDS/EBSD systems that still delivers high-quality data for phase distribution analysis amongst other forms of microstructure analysis.   

Fig. 1: Phase fraction map of ZnO ceramic (no data cleaning). ZnO in blue (91%), Sb-ZnO in pink (4%). Porosity: 4,9 %. No cleaning applied.
Fig. 2: Inverse Pole Figure /Z (IPF/Z) showing crystallographic orientation distribution. Step (pixel) size: 100 nm. Map Size: >2M Pixels, Zero sol.: 0,1%. No cleaning applied