It depends on what you want to do. Are you asking because you are unsure about purchasing the additional equipment to accompany a FEGSEM?

Here are a few things I am thinking after reading your question:

1. FEGSEM will allow for good high-resolution EBSD acquisition. So if you are wanting to do EBSD, it will likely be a great platform.

2. EBSD is useful for characterizing the crystallographic arrangement of crystalline volumes. This is an important analytical tool for many studies in Materials Science and Geoscience fields. The reason we care about the arrangement of crystallographic axes is because as materials are deformed in the solid state, the axes tend to progressively organize into preferred orientations. The specific orientation pattern exhibited by the axes of dynamically recrystallized portions of the material following a deformation at a given T&P can be associated with specific slip systems, deformation mechanisms, and other micro mechanistic characteristics. If you do not have a use for this, then you maybe don't need EBSD equipment.

It depends on what you want to do. Are you asking because you are unsure about purchasing the additional equipment to accompany a FEGSEM?

Here are a few things I am thinking after reading your question:

1. FEGSEM will allow for good high-resolution EBSD acquisition. So if you are wanting to do EBSD, it will likely be a great platform.

2. EBSD is useful for characterizing the crystallographic arrangement of crystalline volumes. This is an important analytical tool for many studies in Materials Science and Geoscience fields. The reason we care about the arrangement of crystallographic axes is because as materials are deformed in the solid state, the axes tend to progressively organize into preferred orientations. The specific orientation pattern exhibited by the axes of dynamically recrystallized portions of the material following a deformation at a given T&P can be associated with specific slip systems, deformation mechanisms, and other micro mechanistic characteristics. If you do not have a use for this, then you maybe don't need EBSD equipment.

From my point of view the majority of really used EBSD systems are attached at FE-SEMs. However, FE-SEM is not equal to FE-SEM. Because EBSD needs as much as possible electrons for a sufficiently visible diffraction pattern Schottky emitter (hot emitter) are preferred. Especially newer generations deliver a beam current above 10nA which is quite OK for analytical questions and still enables the investigation of nano materials. For very small crystal dimensions in the scale of some 10 nm the reduction of acceleration voltage helps, but this has negative effects on the acquisition time. Alternatively the recently pushed application of transmission Kukuchi diffraction (TKD) can be used for nanostructures, but TKD has some other disadvantages (e.g. the more advanced sample preparation). In summary, a FE-SEM is the only SEM which delivers a sufficient electron density which enables analytical investigations at higher resolution. For many geological questions W-SEMs are also OK since there the beam diameter is not that critical. However, when a high local resolution is required (small crystals, high local deformations etc.), no other way exists at the moment than the application of a FE-SEM.

To my knowledge and to contribute to the discussion, these techniques require a sample with very flat surface which cannot be obtained easily with minerals with very different hardness. On the basis of my experience in the field of soil science, the presence of quartz, clay minerals and resin filling partially the porosity, leads to a remaining micro-topography which limits the efficiency of these techniques.

I totally agree with the answer given by Zachary Michels. The use of EBSD as additional equipment allows to identify and indicate phases in electronic microscopy.

I think the question requires some clarification.

1) Do you plan on purchasing a system equipped with EBSD, and you would like to know if it is worth the extra cost?

2) Would you like to know how EBSD compares to other techniques?

Usefulness is a condition of your objective.

you have to keep in mind that sample preparation for EBSD is very peculiar - it is not the conventional EPMA polishing in geological samples. Additionally the samples have to be small enough to tilt them to 70 degrees, automatic focus correction is necessary if you want to map anything bigger then 1mm. It is a very useful technique, but it is not a simple additional feature to the SEM - oh, let me look at the EBSD pattern of this little object - like you would look at the qualitative EDX spectrum. Obtaining useful EBSD information is a whole new world. And just to mention it - we have obtained EBSD patterns with W-filaments... thank god the effect is possible in poor man's SEM as well

EBSD is well known technique - latest development like tEBSD will improve resolution, and for that application FE-SEM (Schottky).

Sample preparation is really important, now it is possible to use ion cross section polishers.

As for all other techniques there are advantages and disadvantages. For big samples you can use a higher working distance if your SEM enables it. Using a LEO 1530 with low pressure aperture I can map 8x6mm without any limitation in one job. There are detectors available changing the so-called analytical point in-situ (for EDS as well as EBSD). Topography is a minor problem as long as you don't want see areas you cannot scan anymore at sample tilt of higher than 60 degrees. Sample preparation is certainly a challange, but this is also valid for powder samples in XRD, or for TEM samples which relax or show phase transformation. Many samples can be prepared conventionally, but mostly a bit longer using softer polishing particles like alumina or better colloidal silica. The big challenge is the tiny information depth of a few up to a few ten nanometer. This upper layer doesn't have to be deformed. More problematic than sample prep, tilt or anything else is the phase-specific charging which reduces resolution or perhaps prevents any investigation. On the other hand, I havn't seen that much samples where is was possible to map them coated or in low vacuum. There are also materials which are instable at high probe current (or high voltage). In so far, EBSD is definitely not the technique which can replace any other method, but it fills a gap which makes it very valuable and unique for many different aspects of microstructure investigations of mainly crystalline materials.

Also FIB is not the uncontroversial. Amin is definitely right for all thin layers as coating which are hard to prepare because of rounding effects at the surface. However I would recommend then even cross section polishing mentioned by Tomasz above since the polished area is by some orders bigger than the typical 30...50 microns polished by FIB. FIB is also known for phase transformation, amorphization etc. That means, one cannot exclude apriori microstructure changes. For Amins investigations they are certainly unexpected, but even duplex steel may transform. Moreover, I compared classical preparation of steel with ion etching (2kV accelleration of Ar using PECS of GATAN) and the patterns of the formerly well prepared steel samples became clearly worse, but still indexable of course, i.e. even this bombardment causes lattice defects at the surface which negatively influence the EBSD patterns and the finally the microstructure.

The application of FE-SEMs is much broader than the coupled usage with FIB. I even observe a shrinkage of interest for 3D EBSD since the long time operation of FIB is finally more difficult as the manufacturers want tell us. On the other hand this is not surprizing if we take into account that even a 2D EBSD map shows a more or less clear and unpredictable drift so that a 3D investigation is even more speculative, especially when crystallographic features like lattice planes shall be derived in 3D. Ken Mingard from NPL performed some measurements where they tried to evaluate the real cutting depth in 3D. Maybe the instrument had a bad day, since the software told them they investigated a 10 micron thick sectioning in depth but finally their inspections found only 4 microns. FIB is certainly a great technique but one should be very careful and shouldn't expect wonders.

It is certainly useful in FEEM but one has to have clear objective for what is to look for. the usefulness of the attachments must be compared for what kind of information we look for and whether is could be available with other techniques with same resolution/magnification/ in terms of cheaper cost.,

EBSD is a very useful and powerful SEM accessory technique allowing obtaining a crystallographic map of the sample surface. It allows for instance to detect the presence of secondary crystallograpic phases in a matrix ,and to know the relative orientation between grains inside of the same crystallograpic phase, among others. As Field Effect Gun provides a stable, monochromatic and high current primary electron beam, EBSD maps obtained are well-resolved, with a very good signal/noise ratio.

thanks a lot to all the above people for sharing the valuable information about EBSD.

Just to complement what Gert said: I've been doing systematic EBSD mapping of whole thin sections of different types of rocks (~45mm x 25 mm) working at relatively high WD (>15 mm in my case). And most of the EBSD systems installed in geological departments people can do that. Of course, you need an automatic stage to control movement and so on, but this is a standard procedure nowadays when dealing with coarse grain materials where you need also good statistics. And although FIB is a very very powerful tool, I completely agree with Gert said...do not expect wonders...right now I am trying to polish a quartz crystal from a sample that cannot be polished by standard methods for three days with various set-ups of accelerating voltages and beam currents, and I cannot see any pattern.

Luiz, we don't have any problems with quartz. You are not that far away from Berlin I guess. Then simply come around... :-) And we do it with conventional preparation.

yes, the problem is that the sample cannot be mounted in a epoxy (small single crystals deformed experimentally under "earthquake" conditions, otherwise I would have done the conventional way :-) - which is easier, cheaper and don't make me walk 4 floors every time I need to check the machine :-) - btw, are you going to run the EBSD meeting again next year?

Luiz, yes, it is an annual EBSD meeting for German speaking people, but we also accept English talks. Especially because next year it will be at the MPIE in Duesseldorf. Usually in May/June.

About your sample: please contact me if you like. We did perhaps already more difficult like marble from heavily fire-damaged statues.