Deep Learning for Semantic Segmentation of Defects in Advanced STEM Images of Steels

Crystalline materials exhibit long-range ordered lattice unit, within which resides nonperiodic structural features called defects. These crystallographic defects play a vital role in determining the physical and mechanical properties of a wide range of material systems. While computer vision has demonstrated success in recognizing feature patterns in images with well-defined contrast, automated identification of nanometer scale crystallographic defects in electron micrographs governed by complex contrast mechanisms is still a challenging task. Here, building upon an advanced defect imaging mode that offers high feature clarity, we introduce DefectSegNet - a new convolutional neural network (CNN) architecture that performs semantic segmentation of three common crystallographic defects in structural alloys: dislocation lines, precipitates and voids. Results from supervised training on a small set of high-quality defect images of steels show high pixel-wise accuracy across all three types of defects: 91.60 ± 1.77% on dislocations, 93.39 ± 1.00% on precipitates, and 98.85 ± 0.56% on voids. We discuss the sources of uncertainties in CNN prediction and the training data in terms of feature density, representation and homogeneity and their effects on deep learning performance. Further defect quantification using DefectSegNet prediction outperforms human expert average, presenting a promising new workflow for fast and statistically meaningful quantification of materials defects.