Basic Elements of Crystallography

"An excellent primer on crystallography - a discipline necessary for everyone concerned with the solid state, overarching the fields of materials science, metallurgy, condensed matter physics, micro- and nano-technology. Abundant and clear drawings allow the authors to introduce the concepts of crystal structures and lattices in a very easy way, starting from one dimensional cases and proceeding to all 14 Bravais lattices. The book expounds on the close packed monoatomic structures as well as several important binary compounds. The ideas of the reciprocal lattice are explained in a straightforward manner. The strengths of this book are the excellent images and a large number of tabulated lattice parameters. This textbook is definitely a good starting point for learning crystallography or teaching introductory courses. I would certainly recommend this to my students, while professionals may also enjoy reading it." Boris I. Yakobson Rice University, USA

"Crystals are viewed as objects of nature which can be described by a set of few vectors. The consequent restriction to elementary topics and elementary methods goes, however, hand in hand with an intuitive, explicit and very detailed presentation of the subject and experienced teachers like Professor Szwacka knows that the most important means in mastering crystallography is visualization. In the text, more than 150 well-designed figures served this purpose. The detailed description of the crystals of elements and a number of binary compounds will certainly be appreciated by undergraduates and graduates in physics as well as in other science disciplines. This fine book provides the appropriate basic knowledge of crystallography both for those who are satisfied with introductory level and those who like to go for more. The authors deserve acknowledgement for their didactic skills." Janos Hajdu Cologne University, Germany

This book is a clear and comprehensive introduction to the field of crystallography. It includes an extensive discussion of the 14 Bravais lattices and its reciprocals, basic concepts of point group symmetry, the crystal structure of elements and binary compounds, and much more. The purpose of this book is to illustrate rather than just describe the structure of materials. Readers who are unfamiliar with the topic, but still interested to learn how the atoms are arranged in crystal structures, will find this book useful. The chapters are accompanied by exercises designed to encourage students to explore the crystal structures they are learning about. The entire notation in this book consistent with the International Tables for Crystallography.

Nevill Gonzalez Szwacki was educated at Warsaw University, with a master's degree in theoretical physics. He received his PhD in computational physics from Polish Academy of Sciences in 2003. Since 2004 he is a Robert A. Welch Postdoctoral Fellow first at Rice University and Texas Tech University and presently at Texas Southern University. Dr. Gonzalez Szwacki is a theoretical physicist, whose research centers around computational modeling of the properties of boron and silicon based nanostructures. One of his achievements was to identify a new family of inorganic fullerenes. The cages are made up entirely of boron atoms and one of them, B80, is known in scientific news as the "boron buckyball" because of its structural similarities to C60.
Teresa Szwacka received her master's degree in theoretical physics from Warsaw University and in the same institution she obtained her PhD and habilitation in the field of condensed matter theory. She has been a professor of physics since 1969 at the University of Los Andes (ULA) in Venezuela. Professor Szwacka was one of the founders of the Department of Physics at ULA. She was also for many years associated with the Faculty of Physics at Warsaw University. Her main research activity concerns the theoretical studies of the optical and transport properties in bulk and low-dimensional semiconductor systems. Professor Szwacka has more than 30 years of experience in teaching physics courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Crystal Structure. Three-Dimensional Crystal Lattice. Crystal Structure of Elements. Crystal Structure of Important Binary Compounds. Reciprocal Lattice. Direct and Reciprocal Lattices.