Position Normalization as a Tool to Extract Compositional and Microstructural Profiles from Backscatter and Secondary Electron Images

Abstract Position normalization is a method of manipulating data from any image source so that the effective information to noise ratio is dramatically increased. In this paper we present two very different examples of the application of position normalization used in the study of high current density superconductors. In the first example we use FESEM fractography to analyze grain boundary density and grain shape in micron-diameter filaments and then normalize the data obtained from individual grains to their positions with respect to the filament-matrix interface. In this way we extract the change of grain structure with position in apparently inhomogeneous microstructure. In the second example we analyze the backscattered electron intensity, BEI, from the cross-section of a superconductor filament with respect to its proximity to phase boundaries. In this way we extract small trends in the mean atomic number with a spatial resolution of better than 100 nm.