Crystal system

Hexagonal hanksite crystal, with three-fold c-axis symmetry

1 Overview
A lattice system is generally identied as a set of lattices
with the same shape according to the relative lengths of
the cell edges (a, b, c) and the angles between them (, ,
). Each lattice is assigned to one of the following classications (lattice types) based on the positions of the lattice points within the cell: primitive (P), body-centered
(I), face-centered (F), base-centered (A, B, or C), and
rhombohedral (R). The 14 unique combinations of lattice systems and lattice types are collectively known as the
Bravais lattices. Associated with each lattice system is a
set of point groups, sometimes called lattice point groups,
which are subgroups of the arithmetic crystal classes. In
total there are seven lattice systems: triclinic, monoclinic,
orthorhombic, tetragonal, rhombohedral, hexagonal, and
cubic.

The diamond crystal structure belongs to the face-centered cubic

lattice, with a repeated 2-atom pattern.

In crystallography, the terms crystal system, crystal

family, and lattice system each refer to one of several
classes of space groups, lattices, point groups, or crystals.
Informally, two crystals tend to be in the same crystal
system if they have similar symmetries, though there are
A crystal system is a set of point groups in which the
many exceptions to this.
point groups themselves and their corresponding space
Crystal systems, crystal families, and lattice systems are groups are assigned to a lattice system. Of the 32 point
similar but slightly dierent, and there is widespread con- groups that exist in three dimensions, most are assigned
fusion between them: in particular the trigonal crystal to only one lattice system, in which case the crystal syssystem is often confused with the rhombohedral lattice tem and lattice system both have the same name. Howsystem, and the term crystal system is sometimes used ever, ve point groups are assigned to two lattice systems,
to mean lattice system or crystal family.
rhombohedral and hexagonal, because both lattice sysSpace groups and crystals are divided into 7 crystal sys- tems exhibit threefold rotational symmetry. These point
tems according to their point groups, and into 7 lattice groups are assigned to the trigonal crystal system. In tosystems according to their Bravais lattices. Five of the tal there are seven crystal systems: triclinic, monoclinic,
crystal systems are essentially the same as ve of the lat- orthorhombic, tetragonal, trigonal, hexagonal, and cubic.
tice systems, but the hexagonal and trigonal crystal systems dier from the hexagonal and rhombohedral lattice
systems. The six crystal families are formed by combining the hexagonal and trigonal crystal systems into one
hexagonal family, in order to eliminate this confusion.

A crystal family is determined by lattices and point

groups. It is formed by combining crystal systems which
have space groups assigned to a common lattice system.
In three dimensions, the crystal families are identical
to the crystal systems except the hexagonal and trigonal
1

CRYSTAL SYSTEMS IN FOUR-DIMENSIONAL SPACE

crystal systems, which are combined into one hexagonal 3 Lattice systems
crystal family. In total there are six crystal families: triclinic, monoclinic, orthorhombic, tetragonal, hexagonal, The distribution of the 14 Bravais lattice types into 7 latand cubic.
tice systems is given in the following table.
Spaces with less than three dimensions have the same In geometry and crystallography, a Bravais lattice is a
number of crystal systems, crystal families, and lattice category of symmetry groups for translational symmesystems. In zero- and one-dimensional space, there is one try in three directions, or correspondingly, a category of
crystal system. In two-dimensional space, there are four translation lattices.
crystal systems: oblique, rectangular, square, and hexagSuch symmetry groups consist of translations by vectors
onal.
of the form
The relation between three-dimensional crystal families,
crystal systems, and lattice systems is shown in the following table:
R = n1 a1 + n2 a2 + n3 a3 ,
Caution: There is no trigonal lattice system. To avoid where n1 , n2 , and n3 are integers and a1 , a2 , and a3 are
confusion of terminology, don't use the term trigonal lat- three non-coplanar vectors, called primitive vectors.
tice.
These lattices are classied by space group of the translation lattice itself; there are 14 Bravais lattices in three dimensions; each can apply in one lattice system only. They
represent the maximum symmetry a structure with the
translational symmetry concerned can have.

Crystal classes

All crystalline materials must, by denition t in one of

these arrangements (not including quasicrystals).

The 7 crystal systems consist of 32 crystal classes (cor- For convenience a Bravais lattice is depicted by a unit cell
responding to the 32 crystallographic point groups) as which is a factor 1, 2, 3 or 4 larger than the primitive cell.
shown in the following table:
Depending on the symmetry of a crystal or other pattern,
Point symmetry can be thought of in the following fash- the fundamental domain is again smaller, up to a factor
ion: consider the coordinates which make up the struc- 48.
ture, and project them all through a single point, so that The Bravais lattices were studied by Moritz Ludwig
(x,y,z) becomes (-x,-y,-z). This is the 'inverted struc- Frankenheim (18011869), in 1842, who found that
ture'. If the original structure and inverted structure are there were 15 Bravais lattices. This was corrected to 14
identical, then the structure is centrosymmetric. Oth- by A. Bravais in 1848.
erwise it is non-centrosymmetric. Still, even for noncentrosymmetric case, inverted structure in some cases
can be rotated to align with the original structure. This is
4 Crystal
systems
in
fourthe case of non-centrosymmetric achiral structure. If the
inverted structure cannot be rotated to align with the origdimensional space
inal structure, then the structure is chiral (enantiomorphic) and its symmetry group is enantiomorphic.[1]
The four-dimensional unit cell is dened by four
A direction (meaning a line without an arrow) is called
polar if its two directional senses are geometrically or
physically dierent. A polar symmetry direction of a
crystal is called a polar axis.[2] Groups containing a polar
axis are called polar. A polar crystal possess a unique
axis (found in no other directions) such that some geometrical or physical property is dierent at the two ends
of this axis. It may develop a dielectric polarization, e.g.
in pyroelectric crystals. A polar axis can occur only in
non-centrosymmetric structures. There should also not
be a mirror plane or 2-fold axis perpendicular to the polar axis, because they will make both directions of the
axis equivalent.
The crystal structures of chiral biological molecules
(such as protein structures) can only occur in the 11
enantiomorphic point groups (biological molecules are
usually chiral).

edge lengths ( a, b, c, d ) and six interaxial angles (

, , , , , ). The following conditions for the lattice
parameters dene 23 crystal families:
1 Hexaclinic: a = b = c = d, = = = = =
= 90
2 Triclinic: a = b = c = d, = = = 90 , = =
= 90
3 Diclinic: a = b = c = d, = 90 , = = = =
90 , = 90
4 Monoclinic: a = b = c = d, = 90 , = = =
= = 90
5 Orthogonal: a = b = c = d, = = = = =
= 90
6 Tetragonal Monoclinic: a = b = c = d, = 90 , =
= = = = 90

3
7 Hexagonal Monoclinic: a = b = c = d, = 90 , = like enantiomorphic pairs of three-dimensional space
= = = 90 , = 120
groups P31 and P32 , P41 22 and P43 22. Starting from
8 Ditetragonal Diclinic: a = d = b = c, = = four-dimensional space, point groups also can be enantiomorphic in this sense.
90 , = = 90 , = 90 , = 180
9 Ditrigonal (Dihexagonal) Diclinic: a = d = b =
c, = = 120 , = = 90 , = = 90 , cos =
cos cos

5 See also

10 Tetragonal Orthogonal: a = b = c = d, = =
= = = = 90

Crystal cluster

11 Hexagonal Orthogonal: a = b = c = d, = =
= = = 90 , = 120

Crystal structure

12 Ditetragonal Monoclinic: a = d = b = c, = =
= = 90 , = = 90
13 Ditrigonal (Dihexagonal) Monoclinic: a = d = b =
c, = = 120 , = = 90 , = = 90 , cos =
12 cos
14 Ditetragonal Orthogonal: a = d = b = c, = =
= = = = 90
15 Hexagonal Tetragonal: a = d = b = c, = =
= = = 90 , = 120
16 Dihexagonal Orthogonal: a = d = b = c, = =
120 , = = = = 90 ,
17 Cubic Orthogonal: a = b = c = d, = = =
= = = 90
18 Octagonal: a = b = c = d, = = = 90 , =
= 90 , = 180
19 Decagonal: a = b = c = d, = = = = =
, cos = 0.5 cos
20 Dodecagonal: a = b = c = d, = = 90 , =
= 120 , = = 90
21 Di-isohexagonal Orthogonal: a = b = c = d, =
= 120 , = = = = 90
22 Icosagonal (Icosahedral): a = b = c = d, = =
= = = , cos = 14
23 Hypercubic: a = b = c = d, = = = = =
= 90
The names here are given according to Whittaker.[3] They
are almost the same as in Brown et al,[4] with exception
for names of the crystal families 9, 13, and 22. The names
for these three families according to Brown et al are given
in parenthesis.
The relation between four-dimensional crystal families,
crystal systems, and lattice systems is shown in the following table.[3][4] Enantiomorphic systems are marked with
asterisk. The number of enantiomorphic pairs are given
in parentheses. Here the term enantiomorphic has different meaning than in table for three-dimensional crystal classes. The latter means, that enantiomorphic point
groups describe chiral (enantiomorphic) structures. In
the current table, enantiomorphic means, that group itself (considered as geometric object) is enantiomorphic,

List of the 230 crystallographic 3D space groups

Polar point group

6 Notes
[1] Howard D. Flack (2003). Chiral and Achiral Crystal Structures. Helvetica Chimica Acta. 86: 905921.
doi:10.1002/hlca.200390109.
[2] E. Koch , W. Fischer , U. Mller , in International Tables for Crystallography, Vol. A, Space-Group Symmetry, 5th edn., Ed. T. Hahn, Kluwer Academic Publishers,
Dordrecht, 2002, Chapt. 10, p. 804.
[3] E. J. W. Whittaker, An atlas of hyperstereograms of the
four-dimensional crystal classes. Clarendon Press (Oxford Oxfordshire and New York) 1985.
[4] H. Brown, R. Blow, J. Neubser, H. Wondratschek
and H. Zassenhaus, Crystallographic Groups of FourDimensional Space. Wiley, NY, 1978.

7 References
Hahn, Theo, ed. (2002). International Tables for
Crystallography, Volume A: Space Group Symmetry.
A (5th ed.). Berlin, New York: Springer-Verlag.
doi:10.1107/97809553602060000100. ISBN 9780-7923-6590-7.

8 External links
Overview of the 32 groups
Mineral galleries Symmetry
all cubic crystal classes, forms and stereographic
projections (interactive java applet)
Crystal system at the Online Dictionary of Crystallography
Crystal family at the Online Dictionary of Crystallography

8
Lattice system at the Online Dictionary of Crystallography
Conversion Primitive to Standard Conventional for
VASP input les
Learning Crystallography

EXTERNAL LINKS

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

9.1

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Crystal system Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_system?oldid=732310971 Contributors: DrBob, Patrick, Michael Hardy,

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9.2

Images

File:Carbon_lattice_diamond.png Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Carbon_lattice_diamond.png License: Public domain Contributors: Own work Original artist: This image was created with PyMOL
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class='image'><img alt='Cubic, face-centered.png' src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Cubic%2C_
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wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d7/Cubic%2C_face-centered.png/64px-Cubic%2C_face-centered.png 2x' data-le-width='145' data-leheight='135' /></a> Lattice face centered cubic.svg: <a href='//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lattice_face_centered_cubic.svg'
class='image'><img alt='Lattice face centered cubic.svg' src='https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Lattice_
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