HOLZ line analysis of lattice parameters in magnesium alloys

A method of refining lattice parameters from deficit higher-order Laue zone (HOLZ) line data from large angle convergent beam electron diffraction (LACBED) data is presented, relying on distances between nearest neighbour intersections alone in order to minimize effects of distortion over the field of view. Use is made of a dynamical correction Δk to the fast electron wavevector k for kinematic analysis. This correction term is shown to depend on the specific HOLZ beam under consideration, as well as the zone axis and eigenvalue associated with the branch index of the relevant dispersion surface. This method is applied to analysis of data from magnesium alloys, where momentum filtering induced by the LACBED method facilitates HOLZ contrast from a relatively low index zone axis (where contrast is not detectable with conventional CBED), and contrast is enhanced at elevated temperatures from a higher index zone axis. Although the accuracy of refined lattice parameters from these sets of data is shown to be no better than 0.1%, it is felt that issues arising out of the analysis may be of some interest, particularly since these are non-ideal specimens. Full eigenstate analysis of the fast electron wavefunction is presented, and issues related to the influence of the dispersion surface on deficit HOLZ line behaviour are discussed.