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ME103ME: Engineering Materials
Lecture 5 : Simple crystals (contd..)
Instructor: Prof. P S Robi
Department of Mechanical Engineering
IIT Guwahati
Simple cubic structure
One atom at every corner of the cube
Coordination number : 6 (each atom is surrounded by 6 atoms)
Atomic packing factor : 0.52
i.e. only 52.4 % of the crystal is occupied by atoms. Remaining
are empty space.
Example: Polonium (Po)
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Body centered cubic (BCC) Crystals
One atom at each corner + one atom in the center of the cube.
Coordination number: 8 (each atom is surrounded by 8 nearest
neighbours).
Atomic Packing factor: 0.68. Lower than face-centered cubic
(FCC) structures, meaning it's not as tightly packed as FCC.
Eg, α-Fe,W, Cr, Li, Na, K,
Hexagonal Close Packed (HCP) crystal
Figure source: https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/hexagonal-unit-cell-crystal-lattice-347363213
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Face centered Cubic (FCC) crystal
CsCl structure
The cesium chloride has a body centered cubic crystal structure.
The chloride ions (Cl-) are located at the corners of a cube,
The cesium ion (Cs+) is positioned at the body center of the cube.
Can be viewed as two interpenetrating simple cubic lattices.
Coordination number is 8.
Figure Source : https://edu.rsc.org/magnificent-molecules/caesium-chloride/3008267.article
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Eg. Tin at room temperature,
titanium, and indium.
Chalcopyrite (CuFeS2)
Monoxides of Pb, Sn, Pa, and Pt
Figure source: https://mse.iyte.edu.tr/en/crystallography/
NaCl structure
Sodium chloride (NaCl) has a face-centered cubic (FCC) crystal
structure. The chloride ions (Cl-) form a FCC lattice, and sodium
ions (Na+) occupy the octahedral voids within that lattice.
Each sodium ion is surrounded by six chloride ions, and each
chloride ion is surrounded by six sodium ions, giving both ions a
coordination number of 6.
Figure source: Internet
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Zinc blende structure
Zinc Blende structure (eg. ZnS) is characterized by a face-
centered cubic (FCC) arrangement of anions (S2-), with cations
(Zn2+) occupying half of the tetrahedral voids.
S2- anions are arranged in a face-centered cubic lattice and
occupy the corners and the center of each face of the cube.
Each cation is surrounded by four
anions forming a tetrahedron
geometry, and each anion is
surrounded by four cations.
Hence coordination number = 4.
Eg: ZnS, gallium arsenide (GaAs),
indium phosphide (InP), zinc selenide
(ZnSe), cadmium telluride (CdTe), etc.
Figure source: https://www.chemtube3d.com/_blendefinal/
Diamond cubic structure
It is formed of unit cells stacked together.
there are 18 carbon atoms in the figure.
each corner atom (8 nos) is shared by 8 unit cells
each atom in the center (6 nos ) of a face is shared by two cells.
There are 4 atoms inside the Diamond cubic structure
Therefore, total atoms per unit cell = 8.
Each carbon atom is bonded to 4 carbon atoms, forming a tetrahedron
Figure source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diamond_cubic
