Distribution of grain boundaries in an Fe(Si) alloy

Grain boundaries (GBs) in recrystallized high-purity Fe-3 at.% Si wire, that had been plastically deformed (99% areal reduction), were characterized with respect to their unit rotation axis, c, the rotation angle, theta, about c, and the unit normal, n, to the GB plane; c and theta determine the misorientation between two grains and are equivalent to a Sigma value in the coincident-site-lattice (CSL) description. The recrystallization wire texture is [110], but it is not strong. The GB types are clustered around Sigma = 3 ([111]/60 degrees), Sigma = 43c ([332]/60.77 degrees), and Sigma = 17b ([221]/61.93 degrees) misorientations, but the angular deviations from exact Sigma misorientations are large, indicating that the Sigma description of GBs in recrystallized Fe-3 at.% Si wire is not physically significant. The CSL description only serves as a convenient descriptor for comparing GB misorientations. If the selective growth mechanism is occurring in the recrystallized high-purity Fe-3 at.% Si wire, it cannot be explained in terms of the CSL structure of a GB.