Brillouin Zones

Brillouin zones are an important characteristic oI crystal structures. The construction and
illustration oI Brillouin zones Ior a three dimensional lattice are somewhat diIIicult to
Iollow. The construction oI Brillouin zones Ior a two dimensional lattice is much easier to
Iollow. This is a sketch oI the construction oI the Iirst Iour Brillouin zones Ior a square
lattice.
First, some deIinitions. A Bragg "plane" Ior two points in a lattice is the "plane" which is
perpendicular to the line between the two points and passes through the bisector oI that
line. The Iirst Brillouin zone Ior a point in a lattice is the set oI points that are closer to
the point than the Bragg "plane" oI any point. In other words one can reach any oI the
points in the Iirst Brillouin zone oI a lattice point without crossing the Bragg "plane" oI
any other point in the lattice.
The second Brillouin zone is deIined as the points which may be reached Irom the Iirst
Brillouin zone by crossing only one Bragg "plane." This can be generalized to deIine the
n-th Brillouin zone as the set oI points, not in the previous zones, that can be reached
Irom one (n-1)th zone by crossing one and only one Bragg "plane."
In constructing the Brillouin zones Ior a point it is expeditent to Iirst determine the
nearest neighbors, the next nearest neighbors and so on. This is conveniently illustrated
with a square lattice. Shown below are the nearest through Iourth nearest neighbors and
their Bragg lines.
Brillouin Zones (contd..)
The Iirst Brillouin zone is deIined to be the Wigner-Seitz primitive cell oI the reciprocal
lattice, or it could be deIined as the set oI points in k space that can be reached Irom the
origin without crossing any Bragg plane. The second Brillouin zone is the set oI points
that can be reached Irom the Iirst zone by crossing only one Bragg plane. The (n 1)th
Brillouin zone is the set oI points not in the (n - 1)th zone that can be reached Irom the
nth zone by crossing n - 1 Bragg planes.
Alternatively, the nth Brillouin zone can be deIined as the set oI points that can be
reached Irom the origin by crossing n - 1 Bragg planes, but no Iewer.
The Iirst three Brillouin zones Ior some lattices are illustrated below (they were
constructed by the program BrillouinZone):
First zone Second zone Third zone
sc
fcc
bcc
I Brillouin Zones for a 2-D oblique lattice.
I Brillouin Zones for a 3-D Simple cubic lattice.
For a simple cubic lattice oI side a in DL, the RL is also a simple cube oI side 2a/a. Three
highlighted planes are the normal planes to the RL vectors AB, AC and AD. Along with
the other 3 planes, the BZ is constituted which is S/C oI side 2a/a
A
B
C
D