Cubic Crystal System

Cubic Crystal System

In crystallography, the cubic (or isometric) crystal system is a crystal system where the unit cell is in the shape of a cube. This is one of the most common and simplest shapes found in crystals and minerals.

There are three main varieties of these crystals:

  • Primitive cubic (abbreviated cP and alternatively called simple cubic)
  • Body-centered cubic (abbreviated cI or bcc),
  • Face-centered cubic (abbreviated cF or fcc, and alternatively called cubic close-packed or ccp)

Each is subdivided into other variants listed below. Note that although the unit cell in these crystals is conventionally taken to be a cube, the primitive unit cell often is not. This is related to the fact that in most cubic crystal systems, there is more than one atom per cubic unit cell.

Read more about Cubic Crystal System:  Cubic Space Groups, Crystal Classes, Voids in The Unit Cell, Atomic Packing Factors and Examples, Multi-element Compounds

Famous quotes containing the words cubic, crystal and/or system:

    “Mining today is an affair of mathematics, of finance, of the latest in engineering skill. Cautious men behind polished desks in San Francisco figure out in advance the amount of metal to a cubic yard, the number of yards washed a day, the cost of each operation. They have no need of grubstakes.”
    —Merle Colby, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    “I waited alone, in the company of orchids, roses and violets who—like people waiting beside you, but to whom you are unknown—maintained a silence which their individuality of living things rendered more imposing and in their chilly manner received the heat from an incandescent coal fire, preciously placed behind a crystal glass, in a white marble tub where it dropped, from time to time, its dangerous rubies.”
    —Marcel Proust (1871–1922)

    “The system was breaking down. The one who had wandered alone past so many happenings and events began to feel, backing up along the primal vein that led to his center, the beginning of hiccup that would, if left to gather, explode the center to the extremities of life, the suburbs through which one makes one’s way to where the country is.”
    —John Ashbery (b. 1927)