Preferred orientation of boride crystals in the borided layers: a quantitative method of evaluation

A method is proposed to quantitatively evaluate the preferred orientation of FeB and Fe2B crystals, constituting the borided layer obtained on iron. The preferred orientation is expressed by an empirically calculated factor σ, which allows a fair fit of calculated with observed peak intensities by X-ray diffraction analysis of the layer (R value ≤0.15). In a further investigation, this coefficient (σ) was used to quantitatively examine the influence of temperature and reagent composition on the degree of orientation of the phases obtained by boronizing pure iron.