Unit cell
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In geometrical models of crystal structure, a unit cell describes the arrangement of atoms within a given type of crystal.
Description
The unit cell is a small box containing one or more atoms arranged in three dimensions.
The unit cells stacked in three-dimensional space describe the bulk arrangement of atoms of the crystal.
The unit cell is represented in terms of its lattice parameters, which are the lengths of the cell edges (a, b and c) and the angles between them (alpha, beta and gamma), while the positions of the atoms inside the unit cell are described by the set of atomic positions (xi, yi, zi) measured from a lattice point.
Commonly, atomic positions are represented in terms of fractional coordinates, relative to the unit cell lengths.
See also
External links
- Crystal_structure#Unit_cell @ Wikipedia
