CHE-MAT

Structure of Crystalline Solids

1

Engr. Francis A. Malabanan

ECE, Instructor

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SOLID MATERIALS
 Solid materials have been conveniently grouped into three basic
categories:
 Metals
 Composed of one or more metallic elements
 Ceramic
 Ceramics are compounds between metallic and nonmetallic elements
 Polymers
 Include the familiar plastic and rubber materials

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MATERIALS AND PACKING

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FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS
 A crystalline material is one in which the atoms are situated in a
repeating or periodic array over large atomic distances.

 Some of the properties of crystalline solids depend on the

crystal structure (Lattice) of the material, the manner in which
atoms, ions, or molecules are spatially arranged.

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ATOMIC HARD SPHERE
 When describing crystalline structures,
atoms (or ions) are thought of as being solid
spheres having well-defined diameters.
 Lattice means a three-dimensional array of
points coinciding with atom positions (or
sphere centers)
 The unit cell is the building block of the
crystal structure. Repetition of unit cell
generates entire crystal. Aggregate of many atoms

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 CRYSTAL STRUCTURE

Hard-sphere unit cell representation Reduced-sphere unit cell

Aggregate of many atoms

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METALLIC CRYSTAL
STRUCTURES
 Most common unit cell of a metal structures:
 Face-Centered cubic (FCC)
 Body-Centered cubic (BCC)
 Hexagonal Close-Packed (HCP)

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FACE-CENTERED CUBIC CRYSTAL STRUCTURE

 atoms located at each of the

corners and the centers of all
the cube faces.
 Number of atoms per unit cell,
n = 4.
 the cube edge length (a)

Hard-sphere unit cell representation

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CHARACTERISTICS OF A
CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
 Coordination number
 Each atom has the same number of nearest-neighbor or touching
atoms. For FCC, CN is 12.
 Atomic packing factor (APF)
 Sum of the sphere volumes of all atoms within a unit cell divided by the
unit cell volume. (APF of FCC is 0.74)

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 BODY-CENTERED CUBIC CRYSTAL STRUCTURE
 Atoms located at all eight corners and a single atom at the cube
center.

Hard-sphere unit cell representation Reduced-sphere unit cell Aggregate of many atoms
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BODY-CENTERED CUBIC CRYSTAL STRUCTURE

 Number of
atoms per unit
cell, n = 2
 CN = 8
 APF = 0.68
 a = 4R/3

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HEXAGONAL CLOSE-PACKED CRYSTAL STRUCTURE

# Atom = 6
CN = 12
APF = 0.74

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ATOMIC RADII AND CRYSTAL
STRUCTURES
FOR 16 METALS

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DENSITY COMPUTATION

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 EXAMPLE PROBLEM
1. Determine the FCC Unit Cell Volume (Vc) in terms of the atomic
radius R.
2. Show that the atomic packing factor for the FCC crystal structure
is 0.74.
3. Copper has an atomic radius of 0.128 nm, an FCC crystal
structure, and an atomic weight of 63.5 g/mol. Compute its
theoretical density and compare the answer with its measured
density. (The literature value for the density of copper is 8.94
g/cm3)
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POLYMORPHISM AND ALLOTROPY
 Some materials can exist in more than one crystal
structure, called polymorphism.
 Allotropy is the existence of two or more different physical
forms of a chemical element.

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POLYMORPHISM AND
ALLOTROPY

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 THANK YOU

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REFERENCES
 Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction by W.D.
Callister, Jr., 7th edition, John Wiley and Sons, Inc. (2007)
 Wikipedia
 Britannica

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