Body-centred cubic close-packed

Their normal crystal structure, at ambient conditions, corresponds to the body-centred cubic cI2-W-type structure. At very low temperatures, the close-packed hexagonal hP2-Mg-type structure has been observed for Li and Na, while for Rb and Cs the face-centred cubic close-packed cF4-Cu-type structure is known at high pressure. No polymorphic transformation has been reported for potassium. 

When the radius ratio is less than 0.59 the alloy is normal and the mclal—interstitial atom arrangement is face-centred cubic, close-packed hexagonal or body-centred cubic. The complex interstitial alloys have a radius ratio greater than 0.59 and are less stable. Carbon and nitrogen always occupy octahedral holes in interstitial alloys hydrogen always occupies the smaller tetrahedral interstices. In face-centred cubic and close-packed hexagonal lattices there are as many octahedral holes as metal atoms and twice as many tetrahedral holes. 

Metals atoms (cations) pack closely together in a regular structure to form crystals. Arrangements in which the gaps are kept to a minimum are known as close-packed structures. X-ray diffraction studies have revealed that there are three main types of metallic structure hexagonal close packed, face-centred cubic close packed and body-centred cubic. 

Figure Al.3.23. Phase diagram of silicon in various polymorphs from an ab initio pseudopotential calculation [34], The volume is nonnalized to the experimental volume. The binding energy is the total electronic energy of the valence electrons. The slope of the dashed curve gives the pressure to transfomi silicon in the diamond structure to the p-Sn structure. Otlier polymorphs listed include face-centred cubic (fee), body-centred cubic (bee), simple hexagonal (sh), simple cubic (sc) and hexagonal close-packed (licp) structures.

Figure Bl.21.1. Atomic hard-ball models of low-Miller-index bulk-temiinated surfaces of simple metals with face-centred close-packed (fee), hexagonal close-packed (licp) and body-centred cubic (bcc) lattices (a) fee (lll)-(l X 1) (b)fcc(lO -(l X l) (c)fcc(110)-(l X 1) (d)hcp(0001)-(l x 1) (e) hcp(l0-10)-(l X 1), usually written as hcp(l010)-(l x 1) (f) bcc(l 10)-(1 x ]) (g) bcc(100)-(l x 1) and (li) bcc(l 11)-(1 x 1). The atomic spheres are drawn with radii that are smaller than touching-sphere radii, in order to give better depth views. The arrows are unit cell vectors. These figures were produced by the software program BALSAC [35]-...

Fig. 3.8 Some basic Bravais lattices (a) simple cubic, (b) body-centred cubic, (c) face-centred cubic and (d) simple hexagonal close-packed. (Figure adapted in part from Ashcroft N V and Mermin N D 1976. Solid State Physics.

We begin by looking at the smallest scale of controllable structural feature - the way in which the atoms in the metals are packed together to give either a crystalline or a glassy (amorphous) structure. Table 2.2 lists the crystal structures of the pure metals at room temperature. In nearly every case the metal atoms pack into the simple crystal structures of face-centred cubic (f.c.c.), body-centred cubic (b.c.c.) or close-packed hexagonal (c.p.h.). 

When Li metal is cold-worked it transforms from body-centred cubic to cubic close-packed in which each atom is surrounded by 12 others in twinned cuboctahedral coordination below 78 K the stable crystalline modification is hexagonal dose-packed in which each lithium atom has 12 nearest neighbours in the form of a cuboctahedron. This very high coordination... 

Mono- or single-crystal materials are undoubtedly the most straightforward to handle conceptually, however, and we start our consideration of electrochemistry by examining some simple substances to show how the surface structure follows immediately from the bulk structure we will need this information in chapter 2, since modern single-crystal studies have shed considerable light on the mechanism of many prototypical electrochemical reactions. The great majority of electrode materials are either elemental metals or metal alloys, most of which have a face-centred or body-centred cubic structure, or one based on a hexagonal close-packed array of atoms. 

Figure 2.30. Typical one-component systems (a) Room temperature, room pressure region of the well-known PIT phase diagram of water (notice the logarithmic scale of pressure), (b) P-T phase diagram of elemental Fe. The fields of existence of the different forms of Fe are shown a (body-centred cubic Fe), (face-centred cubic), 6 (body-centred cubic, high-temperature form isostructural with a), e (hexagonal close packed), L (liquid Fe). The gas phase field, owing to the pressure scale and the not very high temperatures considered, should be represented by a very narrow region close to the T axis.

According to the Frank-Kasper definition, the coordination number is unambiguously 12 in the hexagonal close-packed metals and assumes the value 14 in a body-centred cubic metal. Generally in several complex metallic structures this definition yields reasonable values such as 14, even when the nearest-neighbour definition would give 1 or 2. 

The compounds BajInjOj, Agl and PbFj illustrate ionic conductivity in stoichiometric compounds. The first is a fast oxide-ion conductor above a first-order order-disorder transition at 930 °C that leaves the Bain array unchanged the second is a fast Ag -ion conductor above a first-order transition at which the I -ion array changes from close-packed to body-centred cubic and the third exhibits a smooth transition to a fast F ion conductor without changing the face-centred-cubic array of Pb " ions. 

Some metals do not adopt a close-packed structure but have a slightly less efficient packing method this is the body-centred cubic structure (bcc), shown in Figure 1.8. (Unlike the previous diagrams, the positions of the atoms are now represented here—and in subsequent diagrams—by small spheres which do not touch this is merely a device to open up the structure and allow it to be seen more clearly—the whole question of atom and ion size is discussed in Section 1.6.4.) In this structure an atom in the middle of a cube is surrounded by eight identical and equidistant atoms at the corners of the cube—... 

Below 146°C, two phases of Agl exist y-Agl, which has the zinc blende structure, and (3-Agl with the wurtzite structure. Both are based on a close-packed array of iodide ions with half of the tetrahedral holes filled. However, above 146°C a new phase, a-AgI, is observed where the iodide ions now have a body-centred cubic lattice. If you look back to Figure 5.7, you can see that a dramatic increase in conductivity is observed for this phase the conductivity of a-Agl is very high, 131 S m , a factor of 10 higher than that of (3- or y-AgI, comparable with the conductivity of the best conducting liquid electrolytes. How can we explain this startling phenomenon ... 

Not all structures are based on close packed lattices. Ions that are large and soft often adopt structures based on a primitive or body centred cubic lattice as found in CsCl (22173) and a-AgI (200108). Others, such as perovskite, ABO3 (Fig. 10.4), are based on close packed lattices that comprise both anions and large cations. The larger and softer the ions, the more variations appear, but the lattice packing principle can still be used. Santoro et al. (1999,2000) have shown how close-packing considerations combined with the use of bond valences can give a quantitative prediction of the structure of BaRuOs (10253). 

Fig. 1.1 The three commonest elemental structure types (a) face-centred cubic, (b) hexagonal close-packed, and (c) body-centred cubic. From Wells (1986).

Crystalline solids consist of periodically repeating arrays of atoms, ions or molecules. Many catalytic metals adopt cubic close-packed (also called face-centred cubic) (Co, Ni, Cu, Pd, Ag, Pt) or hexagonal close-packed (Ti, Co, Zn) structures. Others (e.g. Fe, W) adopt the slightly less efficiently packed body-centred cubic structure. The different crystal faces which are possible are conveniently described in terms of their Miller indices. It is customary to describe the geometry of a crystal in terms of its unit cell. This is a parallelepiped of characteristic shape which generates the crystal lattice when many of them are packed together. 

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