It was recalled that dislocations commonly formed planar arrays that minimized the free interfacial energy between relatively mismatched crystal volumes. In epitaxy and phase transformations, the causative misfit was that between differences in lattice structure and/or the orientations of different phases. In deformed homogeneous crystalline materials, the planar dislocation arrays were grain and mosaic block boundaries that accommodated relative misorientations within the same crystal structure. Thus, planar dislocation arrays had a common basis: the minimization of interfacial energies. Consequently, they were all subject to the low-energy dislocation structures hypothesis. While the specific applications of the underlying general theory were well advanced in terms of epitaxy, phase, and grain boundaries, in connection with plastic deformation that very basis was widely overlooked, if not denied. An attempt was made to (a) document the fact that, while being formed, dislocation structures due to plastic deformation were in thermodynamic equilibrium, (b) firmly establish the outline connection between planar dislocation arrays of all types and (c) thereby establish the kinship between epitaxy and plastic deformation of crystalline materials.

Why Do Dislocations Assemble into Interfaces in Epitaxy as Well as in Crystal Plasticity? To Minimize Free Energy. D.Kuhlmann-Wilsdorf: Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A, 2002, 33[8], 2519-39