Description

The color and disorder in this image are created by looking inside a metal sample made by 3D printing (Additive Manufacturing). I assign color to the different regions based on what the orientation of each metal crystal (grain) is, creating the beautiful tropical effect here.

Electron Backscatter Diffraction enables a quantitative look inside of metal samples created for aerospace applications. This solid titanium sample was created by firing a laser at titanium powder particles and iteratively fusing them layer by layer to the metal below. The result is a final part with complete design freedom. This image took over 4 hours to gather inside a scanning electron microscope, at high accelerating voltage and current.