Crystal Symmetry

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Crystal, basically a solid material whose component are atoms, molecules, and ions arranged in a regular order. In other words, the crystal is made of lattice and a basis. A lattice is a form of one, two and three-dimensional points which are in the regular pattern and a basis which is having a number of atoms to form a crystal. The mathematical study of crystal and crystal formation is known as crystallography. The symmetry of crystal plays an important role in the study of properties of the crystal. The geometrical crystal symmetry is divided into three type:
(i) Translation,
(ii) Rotation, reflection and inversion
(iii) Combination of above two type of operation. The crystal symmetry group can be divided into two type:
(i) Crystallography point group and
(ii) Crystallography space group.
A crystallographic point group having a set …show more content…

Consider a regular polygon of n sides, a rotation through - about an axis normal to the plane of the polygon passing through its center is a symmetry operation for it. The cyclic group consist of n rotation and denoted by Cn. The rotational group coherent with translational symmetry in the crystal are C1, C2, C3, C4, and C6.
In this figure 3.1 which shows the projection of the atom on a plane is called stereographic projection. The point above the plane is denoted by + and the point below the plane is denoted by o. The nature of rotation is defined by the center of the circle i.e. a filled ellipse denoted a twofold axis, a filled triangle denoted a threefold axis, a filled square denoted a fourfold axis and a filled hexagon denoted a sixfold axis of proper rotation.
The reflection in the horizontal plane is denoted by σh.σh commutes with a rotation about the vertical axis.
In figure 3.2 shows the horizontal reflection plane in point group.it denoted by Ch
i.e. direct product of Cn with σh.The group Cn contains 2n

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