Crystalline Materials

Crystalline Material
• Metals and many non-metallic solids are
crystalline i.e
• The constituent atoms are arranged in a
pattern that repeat itself periodically in
three dimensions.
• The actual arrangement of the atoms is
described by the crystal structure.
• The crystal structures of most pure metals
are simple.
• Three most common structures are:
• body-centered cubic,
• Face-centered cubic,
• Closed-packed hexagonal structures
• In contrast, the structures of alloys and
non-metallic compounds are often
complex.
• The positions of the planes, directions and point
sites in a lattice are described by reference to
the unit cell and the three principal axes, x, y,
and z.
• Miller indices of the specific plane (hkl).
• Crystallographic direction are indicated by [uvw]
• Family of planes {hkl}
• Family of Crystallographic directions are
indicated by <uvw>
 Relationships between a direction
and a plane for cubic system

• 1) [uvw] is normal to (hkl) when u = h; v =

k; w = l. [111] is normal to (111).
• 2) [uvw] is parallel to (hkl), i.e; [uvw] lies in
-
(hkl), when hu + kv + lw =0 e.g [112 ] is
a direction in (111) .
• 3) Two planes (h1k1l1) and (h2 k2 l2) are
normal if h1 h2 + k1 k2 +l1 l2 = 0
e.g (001) is perpendicular to (100) and
-
(010). (110) is perpendicular to ( 11 0).
• 4) Two directions u1 v1 w1 and u2 v2 w2 are
normal if u1 u2 + v1 v2 + w1 w2 = 0 e.g
[100] is perpendicular to [001]. [111] is
-
perpendicular to [112 ].