Electron Backscatter Diffraction (EBSD)
EBSD pattern from Manganese Sulfide.
Manganese Sulfide
Micro X-ray Fluorescence (Micro-XRF)
A stainless steel sample with a high manganese (Mn) concentration inclusion was profiled by effectively scanning the probe beam across the region of interest.
An overview of the sample at 10X magnification
A detailed picture of the sample at 100x magnification
Comparison of Mn-enriched inclusion (solid red) and bulk steel (black outline)
Wavelength Dispersive Spectrometry (WDS)
Steel
Steel alloys have a wide range of transition metal additions to optimize the properties as needed. In addition, the composition levels of the various alloying elements can range from major (>10%) to minor (>1%), and even to trace (<1%). Correct discovery and identification of all of the elements is critical to identifying the sample. It could be expected that using a high beam energy would produce high energy X-rays for all of the elements such that they would be isolated in the EDS spectrum (green). However, Mn is a principal minor or trace alloy addition whose Ka X-ray is heavily overlapped with the Cr-Kb and whose Kb heavily overlaps the Fe-Ka X-rays. It is only by using WDS (red) that the analyst can identify the Mn contribution with high confidence.