Factors affecting Confidence Index in EBSD analysis

Abstract

Automated EBSD analysis systems have been used for over two decades relying on the fact that the correctness ofa particular orientation solution could be assessed through the calculation of a Confidence Index. However, suchan index only reports whether a particular solution stands out among any other possible solutions, by receiving alarger number of votes than others, and does not necessarily imply that the corresponding orientation is correct.This issue is addressed in the present paper, where the correctness of solutions and the factors that might affect ithave been studied for single crystal Si and polycrystalline Zn. The results were compared to those presented inprevious papers where this matter was studied in particular for an FCC material. It was observed that about 90%of the solutions were correct if they were obtained using a confidence index of 0.1 using at least 8 Hough bandsregardless of the crystallographic structure or orientation.