This page is designed to show the structures of a few basic crystals. The
structures on this page are all cubic, however other crystal structures
exist which are tetragonal, orthorombic, and monoclinc. These all have
the same basic three types of structures: simple, body-centered, and face
centered. The simple one has one atom on each corner of the box. The
body-centered has one atom on each corner and on atom located in the
center of the box. The face centered has one atom on each corner and one
atom in the center of each side of the box. These are the basic crystal
structures. Other, more complicated structres exist, such as that of a
diamond. In the diamond structure, each atom is tetrahedrally coordinated.
Crystal structures are described by unit cells. A unit cell is the
smallest unit which can fully describe the crystal structure. This cell
is then repeated in all directions to form the entire crystal.
The white atoms are at the corners of the unit cells, the yellow atoms are at the center of the faces of the
unit cells, the dark red atoms are at the
center of the unit cells and the blue atoms
are in the interior positions of the diamond unit cell. To rotate the
crystal, click in box, and move mouse.
This is a crystal structure with eight unit cells.
There are two unit
cells in each direction.
These crystals structures were generated by a program that reads the
coordinates for the unit cell from a file and reproduces it. For a
more in depth expalanation of how the program works, go
here