Recent work had demonstrated a new structural transition occurring at an internal defect in a two-dimensional Ising model. The new behaviour was induced by boundary conditions that constrain the interface to lie at an angle across the defect line. This gave rise to the energy–entropy competition familiar from other examples of pinning–depinning transitions. It was demonstrated how a horizontal solid-on-solid model could be used to obtain results comparable to this exact calculation. This simpler model could then be easily extended so as to encompass a situation where the interface had a different stiffness on each side of the grain boundary.

Solid-on-Solid Model for an Interface Crossing a Grain Boundary. D.B.Abraham, V.Mustonen, A.J.Wood: Journal of Physics A, 2004, 37[24], L233-9