Ingenieurwissenschaften und zugeordnete Tätigkeiten
Crystal structures that show a broken symmetry in their cubic and hexagonal modifications are of great relevance for optoelectronic and photonic applications. This is why methods which are sensitive to non-centrosymmetric structures are important for analysis of these materials in technological applications.
Using channeling-enhanced energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), we demonstrate polarity sensitive orientation determination of a non-centrosymmetric crystal in the scanning electron microscope. The authors observe a characteristic asymmetry in the channeling-enhanced, angle-dependent EDX data of a GaAs sample, which is in good agreement to simulations using the dynamical theory of diffraction for the incident electron beam. This allows us to assign the orientation of the GaAs crystal according to the non-centrosymmetric point group. The method shown here overcomes the limitation of a reduced point-group sensitivity of electron backscatter diffraction Patterns and electron channeling patterns for crystalline phases that contain atoms of approximately equal electron scattering cross sections.