EBSD analysis of electroplated magnetite thin films

By means of electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), we analyse the crystallographic orientation of electroplated magnetite thin films on Si/copper substrates. Varying the voltage during the electroplating procedure, the resulting surface properties are differing considerably. While a high voltage produces larger but individual grains on the surface, the surfaces become smoother on decreasing voltage. Good quality Kikuchi patterns could be obtained from all samples; even on individual grains, where the surface and the edges could be measured. The spatial resolution of the EBSD measurement could be increased to about 10 nm; thus enabling a detailed analysis of single magnetite grains. The thin film samples are polycrystalline and do not exhibit a preferred orientation. EBSD reveals that the grain size changes depending on the processing conditions, while the detected misorientation angles stay similar.