Exploring grain boundary energy landscapes with the activation-relaxation technique

To develop a structure–kinetic property mapping for grain boundaries requires an understanding of their energy landscapes, i.e. the energy basins and nearby saddle points separating adjacent structures. We implement the activation-relaxation technique to obtain a first view of grain boundary energy landscapes for the Σ5 (1 3 0), Σ5 (2 1 0) and Σ3 (1 1 1) grain boundaries in copper. The energy landscapes of these boundaries are very different, which supports a focus on energy landscapes, rather than absolute boundary energy, to understand boundary properties.