Pole Figures in Crystallography
Pole Figures in Crystallography
Pole figures are applied in crystallography and materials science for visualizing the three-dimensional orientation of crystals and the orientation distribution (texture) of grains in polycrystalline materials. A pole figure maps the directions of a set of symmetrically equivalent "poles," that is, normal directions of lattice planes, onto the - plane of a Cartesian -- coordinate system. In order to work with pole figures, it is important to acquire experience in correlating these figures with the corresponding three-dimensional crystal lattice orientation. This Demonstration shows how pole figures are constructed for the example of a cubic crystal lattice. You can choose three different sets of symmetrically equivalent poles. Moreover, to illustrate how pole figures correlate with the three-dimensional orientation of the crystal lattice, you can rotate the lattice about an arbitrary axis by an arbitrary angle.
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