Prepared by

Md Faysal Nayan
Lecturer, AUST

Topics :
Types of Solids
Crystallography
Crystal structure
Atomic Packing Factor
Coordination number
Miller indices

Materials
Materials
Solids

Liquids

Gasses

Types of solids
Solids

Crystalline

Single

Poly

Amorphous

Types of Solids

Types of Solids

Types of solids
Crystalline Crystalline solids are those in which
the atoms or molecules are arranged in a regular
orderly fashion in a 3-D pattern.
periodic arrangement of atoms: definite repetitive
pattern.
Ex-Si,GaAs, Metals, ceramics etc.
Amorphous Solids with considerable disorder in
their structure is called amorphous material.
Atomic arrangement is not periodic.
Ex- Glasses, Plastic

Crystallography
The study of geometric form and other physical

properties of crystalline solids using X-ray ,

electron beam, neutron beam, constitutes the
science of Crystallography.
The basic principles of many materials
characterization techniques such as X-ray
diffraction
(XRD),
Transmission
electron
microscopy (TEM) are based on crystallography.

Basic property of Crystal structure

Periodicity
Symmetry
Long range order

Crystal structure
Crystal is a 3-D periodic arrangement of atoms or

molecules or ions.
All crystal structure described in terms of lattice
and basis.
Crystal structure=Lattice +Basis

Crystal structure
Lattice: A lattice is an infinite periodic array
of geometric points in 3-D space without
any atoms .
Basis: Base is identical group of atoms.

When we place an identical group of atoms

at each lattice point is called basis.

Lattice and Basis

Unit cell
The basic building block of the crystal
structure.
The smallest repeating unit of the lattice in
3-D array.
So, The repetition of unit cell in 3-D
generates the whole crystal structure.

Unit cell

Unit cell

Lattice Parameter of an Unit cell

Primitives: The intercepts a,b,c define the

dimension of a unit cell are known as primitives.

Interfacial angle: The angles between the three
axes are called interfacial angles.
Lattice parameter=Primitives +interfacial angle

Lattice parameter

Bravais lattice

Space lattice in cubic system

Simple Cubic Structure (SC)
Body Centered Cubic (BCC)
Face Centered Cubic (FCC)

Cubic crystal structure

Common crystal structure

Fundamental quantities
Unit cell dimension (a).
Atomic radius (r).
Coordination number (n).
Atomic packing factor (APF)

Co ordination number
The number of equidistant nearest/closest neighbors
atoms that an atom has in the unit cell of the crystal
structure is called coordination number.
The number of closest neighbors to which an atom is
bonded or number of touching atom is called
coordination number.

Atomic Packing factor

The fraction of volume that occupied by atoms in a
unit cell of crystal structure is known as APF.
Volume of atoms in unit cell*
APF =
Volume of unit cell
*assume hard spheres

It indicates how closely atoms are packed in a unit cell.

Simple Cubic Structure (SC)

Example: Polonium (Po)

Simple Cubic Structure (SC)

Coordination number: 6

Simple Cubic Structure (SC)

Number of atoms per unit cell= 1 atom

Simple Cubic Structure (SC)

Dimension of Unit cell a=2R

Body Centered Cubic (BCC)

Body Centered Cubic (BCC)

BCC

a
a

Face Centered Cubic (FCC)

2a

Face Centered Cubic (FCC)

FCC

BCC and FCC

Hexagonal closed packed (HCP)

Hexagonal closed packed (HCP)

Hexagonal closed packed (HCP)

Layer B

Layer A
Layer B
Layer A

Layer A

(a)
a

(c)
Examples: Be, Mg, -Ti ( < 882C ), Cr, Co, Zn, Zr, Cd

(b)

Layer A

Hexagonal closed packed (HCP)

Diamond structure
C

a
a

Fig. 1.33: The diamond unit cell is cubic. The cell has eight atoms.
Grey Sn (-Sn) and the elemental semiconductors Ge and Si have
this crystal structure.

Diamond structure

Diamond structure

Zinc blende structure

S
a
Zn
a
a

Fig. 1.34: The Zinc blende (ZnS) cubic crystal structure. Many
important compound crystals have the zinc blende structure.
Examples: AlAs, GaAs, GaP, GaSb, InAs, InP, InSb, ZnS, ZnTe.

Diamond and ZnS

Properties of crystal material

Properties of crystal structure

Miller Indices
Miller indices is a method of describing the
orientation of a plane or set of planes within a lattice
in relation to the unit cell.
Miller indices is used to express the lattice planes and
direction.

Miller indices
Crystallographic planes- (hkl)
Crystallographic direction- [hkl]
Family of crystallographic planes- {hkl}
Family of crystallographic direction- <hkl>

Crystallographic notation

Crystallographic Plane
z

z
(010)

(010)

(010)

(010)

(010)

y
y
x

(110)

(001)

(100)

z
(111)

(110)

(111)

y
y

(b) Various planes in the cubic lattice

Crystallographic direction
[001]

[111]

[010]
[010]

[100]
[111]

[110]

[110]
[111]

a
x

y
a

[111]

[111]

(c) Directions in cubic crystal system

[111]
[111] [111]

[111]

Family of <111> directions

Density calculation
Atomic concentration
Density of crystal structure
Planer density

Planer concentration
a2
a

A = a22

A = a2

(b ) (1 0 0 )

p la n e

( c ) ( 1 1 0 ) p la n e