The basics of crystallography and diffraction

This book provides a clear introduction to topics which are essential to students in a wide range of scientific disciplines but which are otherwise only covered in specialised and mathematically detailed texts. It shows how crystal structures may be built up from simple ideas of atomic packing and co-ordination, it develops the concepts of crystal symmetry, point and space groups by way of two dimensional examples of patterns and tilings, it explains the concept of the reciprocallattice in simple terms and shows its importance in an understanding of light, X-ray and electron diffraction. Pract.
Content: X-ray photograph of zinc blende (Friedrich, Knipping and von Laue, 1912); X-ray photograph of deoxyribonucleic acid (Franklin and Gosling, 1952); 1 Crystals and crystal structures; 2 Two-dimensional patterns, lattices and symmetry; 3 Bravais lattices and crystal systems; 4 Crystal symmetry: point groups, space groups, symmetry-related properties and quasiperiodic crystals; 5 Describing lattice planes and directions in crystals: Miller indices and zone axis symbols; 6 The reciprocal lattice; 7 The diffraction of light.
Abstract: This book provides a clear introduction to topics which are essential to students in a wide range of scientific disciplines but which are otherwise only covered in specialised and mathematically detailed texts. It shows how crystal structures may be built up from simple ideas of atomic packing and co-ordination, it develops the concepts of crystal symmetry, point and space groups by way of two dimensional examples of patterns and tilings, it explains the concept of the reciprocallattice in simple terms and shows its importance in an understanding of light, X-ray and electron diffraction. Pract