Microchim Acta 155, 243–250 (2006) DOI 10.1007/s00604-006-0550-9 Original Paper Orientation Imaging in Scanning Electron and Transmission Electron Microscopy for Characterization of the Shear Banding Phenomenon Henryk Paul 1;2; , Adam Morawiec 1;3 , Emmanuel Bouzy 3 , Jean-Jacques Fundenberger 3 , and Andrzej Pia ˛tkowski 1 1 Institute of Metallurgy and Materials Science, PAS, Krak ow, Poland 2 University of Zielona G ora, Mechanical Department, 50 Podg orna St., PL-65-246 Zielona G ora, Poland 3 Laboratoire d’Etude des Textures et Applications aux Mat eriaux, CNRS, Metz, France Received May 26, 2005; accepted October 3, 2005; published online May 22, 2006 # Springer-Verlag 2006 Abstract. The texture evolution during deformation of high purity fcc single crystals with initial (112) [11  1] orientation has been characterised in detail by trans- mission (TEM) and scanning (SEM–FEG) electron microscopes. The channel-die deformed samples up to reduction of about 1–1.5, first developing strongly anisotropic layers of elongated cells or twin-matrix plates and then compact clusters of SB. Substantial progress in understanding the mechanism of the SB formation was possible thanks to systematic local orientation measurements (orientation mapping) using SEM and TEM. These two techniques of local orienta- tion measurements have been compared with respect to their applicability for the study of shear banding phenomenon and for characterization of the specific nanostructure of SB in metals with fcc lattice. It was shown that well-developed SB exhibit large orientation spreads up to 35–40  with respect to the adjacent areas outside the band. Most of these misorientations occur by rotations about the TDkh110i axis with significant further rotations about h112i poles. This ultimately leads to the formation of the texture components whose occurrence cannot be explained by models homoge- neous deformation. Key words: Orientation imaging microscopy; shear band; micro- texture; electron diffraction. Shear banding phenomenon in highly deformed metals is still an open field for research. The so- called brass-type shear band (SB) are formed in metals and alloys in which deformation twinning occurs extensively even at relatively low deformations [1], whereas the copper-type ones are typically ob- served in middle-high stacking fault energy (SFE) metals in which elongated cell substructure is formed [2]. However, despite considerable interest in shear banding, the mechanism responsible for their nuclea- tion, development and contribution to the two well- known types of the textures is still the mater of debate. Current understanding of the deformation texture formation in highly deformed pure metals and alloys with face centred cubic (fcc) lattice assumes an in- homogeneous deformation, usually in the form of SB [3]. One of our aims was to explain the mechanism of brass and copper-type SB formation. Because the shear banding is closely related to textures [3–5],  Author for correspondence. E-mail: nmpaul@imim-pan. krakow.pl