2.2 Silica polishing Electropolishing works very well for EBSD preparation of many samples. However, there is no universal electrolyte working for all materials and the non-conductive materials cannot be prepared by electropolishing. As a solution working for nearly all materials, colloidal sillica is a commercially available solution which consists of negatively charged particles of silicon dioxide (SiO2) with a pH value between 8 and 11 [9]. When polishing with this solution, the sample surface is slightly etched and the deformation layer