Universality of grain boundary phases in fcc metals: Case study on high-angle [111] symmetric tilt grain boundaries

It has been reported that different ordered structures can appear at the same grain boundaries. Thermodynamically, they can be regarded as interface phases (``complexions''). The authors use atomistic simulations to show that several fcc transition and post-transition metals exhibit the same two grain boundary phases in [111] tilt grain boundaries. This remains true even when using unphysical pair potentials, highlighting that the occurrence of different grain boundary phases is not an exceptional special case, but common across different materials.