THE STRUCTURE OF

CRYSTALLINE SOLIDS

Prof.: MSc. Priscila Praxedes

Why study the Structure of crystalline solids?

Only the composition have influence on the

properties?

The properties of
some materials are
directly related to
their crystal
structure.
 1. Fundamental Concepts

• Solid materiais may be classified according to the

regularity with which atoms or ions are arranged with
respect to one another.

CRYSTALLINE MATERIAL is one NONCRYSTALLINE

in which the atoms are situated in (AMORPHOUS): materials
a repeating or periodic array over that don’t crystallize, this
large atomic distances. Ex.: all long range atomic order is
metals, many ceramics materials absent.
and certain polymers.
 1. Fundamental Concepts
• When describing crystalline structure, atoms (ions) are thought

of as being solid spheres having well defined diameters.

• ATOMIC HARD-SPHERE MODEL

2. Atomic Hard
Sphere Model
(a) Hard sphere unit cell
representation
(b) Reduced Sphere Unid Cell
Representation
(c) An aggregate of many atoms
3. Unit Cells

It is the small groups of atoms that form a repetitive pattern.

For most of crystall strutucture they are parallelepipeds or

prisms.

The unit cell is chosen to represent the symmetry of the

crystal structure.
4. Metallic Crystal Structure

Metallic bonding is a nondirectional bonding and consequently,

there are minimal restrictions to the number and position of
nearest-neighbor atoms;

This leads to a dense atomic packings for most metallic

crystal structures.
São formadas basicamente:

Common • Crystal
Cúbica de Face
structures Centrada
found (CFC);
for metals:
facecentered cubic,
• Cúbica de Corpo Centrado (CCC);
body-centered cubic, and hexagonal close-packed.
• Hexagonal Compacta (HC).
4. Metallic Crystal Structure

Common Crystal structures found for metals::

• Face-centered cubic (FCC);

• Body-centered Cubic (BCC);
• Hexagonal Closed-Packed (HCP).
Points to remember:
 4.1 FACE CENTERED CUBIC (FCC)
• FCC has a unit cell of cubic
geometry, with atoms
located at each of the
corners (vertex) and the
center of all the cube faces.

The cube edge length a and the

atomic radius R are related
through
Face Centered Cubic
Each corner have one-eighth of the atoms
𝟏 𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒎
8 corner x 𝟖 = 𝟏 𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒎
𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒓

and one-half of each of the six face atoms, or a total of

four whole atoms, may be assigned to a given unit cell.

𝟏 𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒎
6 face x 𝟐 = 𝟑 𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒎s
𝒇𝒂𝒄𝒆
 Face Centered Cubic

The cube edge length a and the

atomic radius R are related through
 4.2 Body Centered Cubic (BCC)
• BCC is a common metallic
crystal structure with atom
located at all eight corners
and a single atom at the
cube center.
4.2 Body Centered Cubic (BCC)
Body Centered Cubic
Each corner have one-eighth of the atoms
𝟏 𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒎
8 corner x 𝟖 = 𝟏 𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒎
𝒄𝒐𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒓

and one central atom

𝟏 𝒄𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒅 𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒎
Body Centered Cubic
The cube edge length a
and the atomic radius R
are related through
5. Atomic Packing Factor (APF)
 6. Density Computations
A knowledge of the crystal structure of a metallic solid
permits computation of its theoretical density through
the relationship:
EXAMPLE PROBLEM: 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.
EXAMPLE PROBLEM: 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.
 7. Polymorphism and allotropy
When some metals (and nonmetals) may have more
than one crystal structure, it’s called as polymorphism.

When it found in elemental solids it is called allotropy.

REFERENCES

• CALLISTER, W. D. & RETHWISCH, D. G.; Material Science and

Engineering: An Introduccion; 8th Edition; John Wiley & Sons,
2009.
• ASKELAND, D. R. & PHULÉ, P. P.; The Science and Engineering of
Materials; 6th Edition: Cengage Learning, 2010.

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