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research papers
It is well known that the misorientation between two cubic crystals is equivalently described by 24 rotations. On the one hand, it is common practice to consider only the rotation associated with the least angle. To assess the physical meaning of such a representation, some new properties of this angle are derived. On the other hand, the rotation whose axis is closest to some special low-index direction may also give insight into the physics of the boundary. The extent to which a misorientation is accurately described by such a low-index axis rotation is examined. Finally, the advantages of each type of representation for describing small- and large-angle grain boundaries are compared and discussed.