CRYSTAL STRUCTURE OF METALS 1

• The atomic bonding in metals is metallic and non-directional in nature.

• Bonds in metals are nondirectional because the electrons are NOT shared with one
atom in one direction; however, they are shared with many other neighboring
atoms in all directions.
• Therefore this leads to relatively large numbers of nearest neighbors and dense
atomic packings for most metallic crystal structures.
• Most of the common metals belong to the following THREE crystal structures:
1) Face-centered cubic (FCC)
2) Body centered cubic (BCC)
3) Hexagonal close-packed (HCP) Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019
 1) The Face-centered cubic crystal structure
(FCC) 2
Crystal structure has a unit cell of a cubic geometry with
atoms located at each of the corners and the center each cube
face.
Familiar metals with FCC crystal structure are:
Copper
Aluminum
Silver
Gold
Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019
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Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina

2/27/2019
The face-centered cubic structure can be represented using the
following features:
a)A hard sphere unit cell representation 4
b)A reduced-sphere unit cell
c) An aggregate of many atoms

Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019

(a) (b) (c)

In the reduced-sphere unit cell, the atom centers are
represented by small circles to provide a better 5
perspective by small circles to provide better
perspective of atom positions

The aggregate of atoms in c)

represent a section of crystal
consisting of many FCC unit cells
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Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina
 These spheres or ion cores (atoms) touch one another
across a face diagonal.
6

The cube edge length a and the (1)

atomic radius R are related
through:
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Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina
 Each corner atom is shared among eight unit cells,
whereas a face-centered atom belongs to only two 7

1 1
∗8 + ∗ 6 = 4𝑎𝑡𝑜𝑚𝑠
8 2

 Therefore, one-eighth (1/8) of each of the eight corner

atoms and one-half (1/2) each of the six face atoms or a
total of four whole atoms may be assigned to a given
unit cell.
Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019
 FCC COORDINATION NUMBER AND ATOMIC PACKING
FACTOR (APF)
8
 For metals, each atom has the same number of nearest-neighbor
atoms, which is the coordination number.
 For FCC, the coordination number is 12.
 This may be confirmed by examining the reduced sphere model

Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019

This may also be confirmed using the hard
sphere model:
9
 The front face atom has 4 corner
nearest- neighbor atoms surrounding it;
 4 face atoms that are in contact from
behind and
 4 other equivalent faces residing in the
next unit cell to the front which is not
shown

Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019

The Atomic packing factor (APF) is the sum of the sphere volumes
of all atoms within a unit cell divided by the unit cell volume
(assuming the atomic hard sphere model) 10
Volume of atom s in a unit cell VS
APF   (2)
total unit cell volume VC

 For FCC structure the APF=0.74 which is the maximum packing possible
for spheres having the same diameter

 NB: Metals typically have relatively large atomic packing factors to

maximize the shielding provided by the free electron cloud

Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019

 2) Body-Centered Cubic Crystal Structure
(BCC) 11

• A metallic structure with a cubic unit cell with atoms located at

eight corners and a single atom at the center of the cube is called a
body centered cubic crystal structure

(a)A hard sphere

model
(b)Reduced sphere
unit cell
Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina

2/27/2019
 Center and corner atoms touch one another along cube
diagonals and the unit cell length a and atomic radius R are
related through:
4R 12
a (3)
3
Chromium, iron, tungsten etc. exhibit a BCC structure

 Two (2) atoms are associated with each BCC unit cell:

i.e One atom from eight corners and the single center atom
wholly contained within its cell
 Coordination number for BCC=8
 APF=0.68
Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019
 3) Hexagonal Close-packed Crystal structure
(HCP) 13
Unit cell has two lattice parameters a and c.
Ideal ratio c/a=1.633
The coordination number, CN=12 (same as FCC)
Number of atoms per unit cell, n=6
3 mid-plane atoms not shared:3x1=3
12 hexagonal corner atoms shared by 6 cells:
12*1/6=2
2 tops/bottom plane atoms shared by 2 cells:
2x1/2=1
• Atomic packing factor, APF=0.74 (same as in FCC)
Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina
  If a and c represent, respectively the short and long unit cell
dimensions, the ratio c/a should be 1.633, however for some
HCP metals, this ratio deviates from the ideal value.

HCP metals include: Cadmium, magnesium, titanium and zinc

Lecture Notes: Chapter 1, MATERIAL SCIENCE, Eng. Dorothy W. Maina 2/27/2019

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