A new powerful tool for surveying cleavage fracture surfaces

A new tool is presented to investigate cleavage fracture surfaces. It is based on the combined techniques of crystal orientation measurements using the Electron Back-Scatter Diffraction (EBSD)-technique and 3-dimensional surfaces reconstruction by an Automatic Surface Reconstruction System (ASRS). With this tool we can perform crystallographic fractometry of cleavage fracture facets of polycrystals within the limits of the resolution of a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), e.g. we can determine the crystallographic indices of cleavage planes and of directions on such planes.