Phys 445 Condensed Matter Physics

Homework 4
Due to October 15th 2010, Friday 9:40 in class

1) Structure factor of diamond. In the crystal structure of diamond, the basis consists
of eight atoms if the cell is taken as the conventional cube. (a) Find the structure
factor S of this basis. (b) Find the zeros of S and show that the allowed reflections of
the diamond structure satisfy v1 + v2 + v3 = 4n , where all indices are even and n is any
integer, or else all indices are odd (look Fig.21 of chapter 2 in Kittel).

2) Diffaraction. Powder specimens of three different monatomic cubic crystals are

analyzed from the diffraction peaks recorded on the film strip by Debye-Scherrer
camera.

It is known that one sample is face-centered cubic, one is body-centered cubic, and
has the diamond structure. The approximate positions of the first four diffraction rings
in each case are:

Values of φ for samples

A B C
42.2º 28.8º 42.8º
49.2º 41.0º 73.2º
72.0º 50.8º 89.0º
87.3º 59.6º 115.0º
 (a) Identify the crystal structures of A. B, and C.
(b) If the wavelength of the incident X-ray beam is 1.5 Å, what is the length of the
side of the conventional cubic cell in each case?
(c) If the diamond structure were replaced by a zinc-blende structure with a cubic unit
cell of the same side, at what angles would be the first four rings now occur?
(See the discussion in Ashcroft/Mermin-Solid State Physics, pp.102-103. For powder
samples, each reciprocal lattice vector of length less than 2k generates a cone of
scattered radiation at angle φ to the forward direction such that G = 2k sin(1 / 2φ ) ).

3) Form factor of atomic hydrogen. For the hydrogen atom in its ground state, the
number density is
1
n(r ) = 3 exp(−2r / a0 )
π a0
where a0 is the Bohr radius. Show that the form factor is
16
fG =
(4 + G 2 a02 ) 2
 

4) Diatomic line. Consider a line of atoms ABAB......ABAB, with an A-B bond length
of a/2. The form factors are fA and fB for atoms A, B respectively. The incident beam
of x-ray is perpendicular to the line of atoms. (a) Show that the interference condition
is nλ = a cos θ where θ , is the angle between the diffracted beam and the line of
atoms. (b) Show that the intensity of the diffracted beam is proportional to f A − f B
2

for n odd, and to f A + f B for n even. (c) Explain what happens if fA=fB.
2