Crystals and Crystal Structures
Chapter One
Crystals and crystal structures
What is a crystal system?
What are unit cells?
What information is needed to specify a
crystal structure?
Crystals are solids that possess long-range order.
The arrangement of the atoms at one point in a
crystal is identical, (excepting localised mistakes
or defects that can arise during crystal growth),
to that in any other remote part of the crystal.
Crystallography describes the ways in which
the component atoms are arranged in crystals
and how the long-range order is achieved. Many
chemical (including biochemical) and physical
properties depend on crystal structure and knowledge
of crystallography is essential if the properties
of materials are to be understood and
exploited.
Crystallography first developed as an observational
science; an adjunct to the study of minerals.
Minerals were, (and still are), described by
their habit, the shape that a mineral specimen
may exhibit, which may vary from an amorphous
mass to a well-formed crystal. Indeed, the ... read full excerpt from Crystals and Crystal Structures ebook
