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crystal
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Learn how the shape of the crystals determine the different minerals into families
Figure 1: Unit cells for face-centred and body-centred cubic lattices. Figure 2: Stacking of spheres in closest-packed arrangements. Figure 3: Crystal structures. There is an equal number of the two types of ions in the unit cell of the (A) cesium chloride, (B) sodium chloride, and (D) zinc blende arrangements. The diamond arrangement is shown in (C). If both atoms are identical in (A), the structure is body-centred cubic. Figure 4: The icosahedral arrangement of boron molecules. Figure 5: Crystalline lattice defect. An edge dislocation occurs when there is a missing row of atoms as shown in region b. Region a is strained. Figure 6: Incident rays (1 and 2) at angle θ on the planes of atoms in a crystal. Rays reinforce if their difference in path length (AB + BC) is an integer times the wavelength of the X ray. crystal bonding Figure 7: Crystal pulling using the Czochralski method. A schematic view of a modern apparatus.
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Also Known As crystalline solid • crystal structure

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Figure 1: Unit cells for face-centred and body-centred cubic lattices.
Figure 2: Stacking of spheres in closest-packed arrangements.
Figure 3: Crystal structures. There is an equal number of the two types of ions in the unit cell of the (A) cesium chloride, (B) sodium chloride, and (D) zinc blende arrangements. The diamond arrangement is shown in (C). If both atoms are identical in (A), the structure is body-centred cubic.
Figure 4: The icosahedral arrangement of boron molecules.
Figure 5: Crystalline lattice defect. An edge dislocation occurs when there is a missing row of atoms as shown in region b. Region a is strained.
Figure 6: Incident rays (1 and 2) at angle θ on the planes of atoms in a crystal. Rays reinforce if their difference in path length (AB + BC) is an integer times the wavelength of the X ray.
crystal bonding
Figure 7: Crystal pulling using the Czochralski method. A schematic view of a modern apparatus.
electron hole: movement
Figure 5: Minerals displaying good crystal form. Although such occurrences are in the minority, they receive considerable attention because of their beauty and because they reflect the symmetry content inherent in the external form and in the internal structure of the mineral. (From top) wulfenite, PbMoO4, from Mexico; rose quartz from Minas Gerais state, Brazil; microcline feldspar, KAlSi3O8, the greenish blue variety known as amazonite, with smoky (dark gray) quartz, from Colorado, U.S.
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Key People

Steno, Nicolaus
Nicolaus Steno
Danish geologist
Ralph Walter Graystone Wyckoff
American chemist
Max von Laue
German physicist
Georges Friedel
French crystallographer
Torbern Bergman, detail of an oil painting by Per Krafft; in the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Stockholm
Torbern Olof Bergman
Swedish chemist and naturalist
René-Just Haüy
French mineralogist
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, 2006.
Pierre-Gilles de Gennes
French physicist
Bertram Eugene Warren
American crystallographer
Victor Mordechai Goldschmidt
German crystallographer
Charles Mauguin
French mineralogist