University13 min

Crystallography: cubic cells and density

Count the formula units in a cell, link the parameter a to the atomic radius, recover the packing fractions 0.52 / 0.68 / 0.74 and calculate a crystal's density.

The essentials

1

Lattice, motif, unit cell

Crystal = lattice (points equivalent by translation) + motif (what sits on each point). There are 77 crystal systems and 1414 Bravais lattices (P, I, F, C centring). In a cell, an atom counts 1/81/8 at a corner, 1/41/4 on an edge, 1/21/2 on a face, 11 inside.
2

The three cubic cells

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3

The density of a crystal

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4

Structure types

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5

Lattice planes and Bragg's law

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