Polycrystalline materials, crystal unit cell determination

Figure 5.88 is an illustration of two-dimensional defects in the form of surfaces and grain boundaries. They either terminate a crystal or separate it from the three-dimensional defects. In polymer crystals, these surfaces and grain boundaries are rarely clean terminations of single-crystalline domains, as one would expect from the unit cell descriptions in Sect. 5.1. The surfaces may contain folds or chain ends and may be traversed by tie molecules to other crystals and cilia and loose loops that enter the amorphous areas, as is illustrated in Figs. 5.87 and 2.98. The properties of a polycrystalline sample are largely determined by the cohesion achieved across such surfaces and the mechanical properties of the interlamellar material, the amorphous defects. 

Chapter 2 was concerned primarily with the various types of atomic bonding, which are determined by the electron structures of the individual atoms. The present discussion is devoted to the next level of the structure of materials, specifically, to some of the arrangements that may be assumed by atoms in the solid state. Within this framework, concepts of crystallinity and noncrystallinity are introduced. For crystalline solids, the notion of crystal structure is presented, specified in terms of a unit cell. The three common crystal structures found in metals are then detailed, along with the scheme by which crystallographic points, directions, and planes are expressed. Single crystals, polycrystalline materials, and noncrystalline materials are considered. Another section of this chapter briefly describes how crystal structures are determined experimentally using x-ray diffraction techniques. 

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