A justification was provided, for structural ledges as interfacial misfit-compensating defects, on the basis of elastic energy considerations. The Nishiyama-Wasserman configuration was considered, which involved close matching along the <211>fcc and <110>bcc directions and on the {111}fcc and {110}bcc planes. Particular attention was paid to the terrace between structural ledges where it was shown, on the basis of atomic matching, that an elastic relaxation obtained at certain terrace lengths. It was concluded that it was this relaxation that made a stepped interface more stable than a planar one for all meaningful values of misfit.

G.J.Shiflet, J.H.Van der Merwe: Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 1994, 25[9], 1895-903