Orientation-distribution mapping of polycrystalline materials by Raman microspectroscopy.

T Schmid,T Rissom,D Abou-Ras,N Schäfer,S Levcenko

doi:10.1038/srep18410

Abstract

Raman microspectroscopy provides the means to obtain local orientations on polycrystalline materials at the submicrometer level. The present work demonstrates how orientation-distribution maps composed of Raman intensity distributions can be acquired on large areas of several hundreds of square micrometers. A polycrystalline CuInSe2 thin film was used as a model system. The orientation distributions are evidenced by corresponding measurements using electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) on the same identical specimen positions. The quantitative, local orientation information obtained by means of EBSD was used to calculate the theoretical Raman intensities for specific grain orientations, which agree well with the experimental values. The presented approach establishes new horizons for Raman microspectroscopy as a tool for quantitative, microstructural analysis at submicrometer resolution.

Highlights

Raman spectroscopy is a standard tool for materials characterization of inorganic as well as organic solids
Tanino et al.[18] showed that the crystal orientations of CuInSe2 single crystals with respect to the incidence and scattering directions of the laser light can be calculated from Raman intensity, by recording Raman spectra on the single crystals at varying polarization directions and evaluating the Raman peaks corresponding to the various vibrational modes
It should be noted that the presented approach to obtain orientation-distribution maps from polycrystalline materials by Raman microspectroscopy can by no means replace electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) as standard tool for this purpose

Summary

Introduction

Raman spectroscopy is a standard tool for materials characterization of inorganic as well as organic solids. This approach has been used to acquire Raman intensity-distribution maps on polycrystalline material systems[8,9,10,11,12,13,14].

Results

Conclusion