Imperfections of crystal structure, especially edge dislocations of an elongated nature, deeply modify basic properties of the entire material and, in consequence, drastically limit its applications. Using silicon carbide as an example, physicists from Cracow and Warsaw have shown that even such computationally demanding defects can be successfully examined with atomic accuracy by means of a cleverly constructed, small in size, model.
Source:
https://phys.org/news/2019-08-theory-reveals-nature-silicon-carbide.html