Q1)

crystalline material

Atoms are arranged in periodic (repetitive) 3-dimensional pattern over large atomic distances Examples:
All Metals, Many Ceramics, and some Polymers

Non crystalline material or Amorphous

No long-range order exists, i.e., no periodic packing

Occurs for- Complex Structures- Rapid Cooling

Examples: Glasses

Q2)

Allotropic

Allotropy the existence of a chemical element in two or more forms which may differ in the
arrangement of atom in crystalline solid or in the occurrence of molecule that contain different number
of atoms.

Polymorphic:

The ability of a solid material to exist in more than one form or crystal lattice.

Q3)

Unit cell:

Smallest repeat entities or pattern are called Unit cells

Unit cells are the basic structural unit or building block of the crystal structure defining the crystal
structure

There are different number of atoms per unit cells depending upon their structure.

BCC contains 2 atoms/cell

FCC contain 4 atoms/cell

HCP contain 6 atoms/cell

Q4)

Atomic packing factor (APF):

Volume of atoms in a unit cell divided by the Total unit cell volume

APF BCC=0.68 APF FCC=0.74 APF HCP=0.74

When FCC iron changed into the BCC iron its volume will decrease. As APF decrease from 0.74 to 0.68.
Q5)

Families of crystal direction and planes:

Crystallographic Direction:
a line between two points and a vector
General rules for defining a crystallographic direction
• pass through the origin of a coordinate
system
• determine length of the vector
projection in the unit cell dimensions a,
b, and c
• remove the units [ua vb wc]---[uvw]
e.g [2a 3b 5c]--[2 3 5]
• uvw are multiplied and divided by a
common factor to reduce them to
smallest integer values

Crystallographic Directions [u v w]

Crystallographic Planes (h k l) Miller Indices

Parallel planes have same miller indices

Determine (hkl)
• A plane cannot pass the chosen origin
• A plane must intersect or parallel any axis
• If the above is not met, translation of the plane or origin is
needed
• Get the intercepts a, b, c. (infinite if the plane is parallel to an
axis)
• take the reciprocal
• smallest integer rule
(hkl) // (hkl) in opposite side of the origin
For cubic only, plane orientations and directions with same
indices are perpendicular to one another

Q6)

The term "closest packed structures" refers to the most tightly packed or space-efficient composition
of crystal structures (lattices). Imagine an atom in a crystal lattice as a sphere. While cubes may easily be
stacked to fill up all empty space, unfilled space will always exist in the packing of spheres.

BCC structure has no closed-packed planes and therefore does not have a stacking sequence.

BCC slip occurs on close-packed planes in close-packed directions. There are 4 close-packed directions:
[111], [111], (111], and [111] for the (11.0) plane. Close-packed planes in BCC are {lID}, {112}, and
{123}.

As parallel planes with the same atomic arrangement are equivalent the FCC structure has four
equivalent close packed planes. Using Miller indices from the previous crystallography experiment show
them to be {111} planes. Thus, the FCC structure has four {111} close packed planes.
Q7)

The face centered cubic and hexagonal close packed structures both have a packing factor of 0.74,
consist of closely packed planes of atoms, and have a coordination number of 12.

The difference between the fcc and hcp is the stacking sequence. The hcp layers cycle among the two
equivalent shifted positions whereas the fcc layers cycle between three positions. As can be seen in
the image, the hcp structure contains only two types of planes with an alternating ABAB arrangement.