NATURE OF

SOLIDS
MELCS:
1.Describe the difference in structure
of crystalline and amorphous solids.
(STEM_GC11IMFIIIa-c-104).
THE NATURE OF
SOLIDS
OBJECTIVES:
After the end of the lesson, you
should be able to:
Compare the structure of
crystalline solids with amorphous
solids,
Relate the properties of solids
to their structure and bonding,
Activity 1: Observing and Comparing Solids
This is a short activity that can be done in approximately 10 minutes.

Materials needed: Magnifying glasses, sugar, salt, pepper.

Procedure:
Observe granules of sugar, salt, and pepper under a magnifying
glass, and observe the similarities and differences between these
common materials.
A pinch of each material should be taken from its container and
placed on a piece of paper or board paper.
Using different magnifying glasses with different powers, they
examine the grains.
Picture Analysis:

PEPPER
SUGAR

SALT
Guide Questions:
1. Can you see the difference between the sugar and
salt granules? Can you see the different angles?
2. Are there angles in the pepper? Does it look
crystalline?
3. Which of the substances appears to be made of
crystals?
4. Defend your answer with evidence from your
observation.
5. What did you use to help you decide which are
crystals, and which are not?
 SOLIDS

CRYSTALLINE AMORPHOU
SOLIDS S SOLIDS

Covalent Solids
Ionic Molecula network
Metallic without a
solids r solids solids solids crystal
lattice
 The Nature of
Solids
Crystalline solids
- are those whose atoms are, ions, or
molecules are ordered in a well defined
arrangements.
- They usually have flat surfaces or faces, and
sharp angles.
- These solids have regular shapes.
Example: ice, sugar, salt, and gems
Amorphous solids
(from the Greek word for ‘without form’) – are
those solids whose particles do not have
orderly structures; therefore they have poorly-
defined shapes.
Examples:
glass, plastic, coal, and rubber. They are
considered super-cooled liquids where molecules
are arranged in a random manner similar to the
liquid state.
 Types of Crystalline Solids
Type of Types of Particles Forces between Properties Examples
Crystalline Particles
Solid
Ionic Positive and Electrostatic attractions hard, brittle and poor Typical salts like
negative ions electrical and thermal NaCl, MgCl2, Ca(NO3)2
conduction
Molecular Atoms or molecules Hydrogen bonds, dipole- Soft, low to moderately Most Organic
dipole forces and high melting point, and compound like CH4,
London dispersion poor thermal and C12H22O11 and many
forces electrical conduction organic compounds
like CO2, H2O and Br2

Covalent Atoms connected in Covalent bonds Very hard very high Diamond, C;Silicon
network a network of melting point, and Carbide,SiC and
covalent molecules often poor thermal and quartz, SiO2
electrical conduction

Metallic Atoms or molecules Metallic bonds Soft to hard, low to All metallic elements
high melting point, like Cu, Na, Zn,Fe,
melleable, ductile and and Al.
good thermal and
electrical conduction
Crystal Lattice and the Unit Cell
Unit cell
The shape of crystal depends on the arrangement
of the particles within it. The smallest portion of
the crystal which shows the complete pattern of
its particles is called a unit cell.
Crystal Lattice
When unit cells are repeated in all directions, a
crystal lattice is formed.
Crystal Lattice and the Unit Cell
There are 14 different unit-cell geometries
that occur in crystalline solids. All unit
cells are parallelepipeds (six-sided figures
whose faces are parallelograms) and differ
only in the lengths of the cell edges and
angles between the edges.
Crystal Lattice and the Unit Cell
Crystal Lattice and the Unit Cell
 Crystal Lattice and the
Unit Cell
Simple cubic unit cell has an atom at each
of the eight corners of the cube.
Body-centered cubic unit cell has an
additional atom in the center of its cube.
Face-centered cubic cell has additional
atoms on each of its faces where each is
shared with another neighboring cube.
Crystal Structure
Crystalline solid – such as ICE
- possesses rigid and long-range order;
- its atoms, molecules or ions occupy specific
positions.
- the arrangement of such particles is such that
the net attractive intermolecular forces are at
their limit.
- Ionic forces, covalent bonds, van der Waals
forces, hydrogen bonds, or combination of these 19
Amorphous solids
- such as glass lack a well-
defined arrangement and
long-range molecular order.

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Crystal Structure

Unit Cell
- is the basic repeating structural
unit of a crystalline solid.
Lattice Point
- An atom, ion, or molecule is defined
by each sphere 21
Figure 1.(a) A unit cell and (b) its
extension in three dimensions.
The black spheres represent
either atoms or molecules.
22
Figure 2.The seven
types of unit cells.
Angle a is defined
by edges b and c,
angle b by edges a
and c, and angle g
by edges a and b

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Packing Spheres
◎ By considering the various forms of packing of a
number of similar spheres (Ping-Pong balls, for
example) to form an ordered three-dimensional
structure, we can understand the general
geometric requirements for crystal formation. The
kind of unit cell we have is defined by the way
the spheres are organized in layers.
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25
 Packing Spheres
◎ Coordination number
- is defined as the number of atoms (or ions) surrounding an
atom (or ion) in a crystal lattice.
- Its value gives us a measure of how closely the spheres are
packed together the greater the number of coordination, the closer
each other is to the spheres.
◎ Simple cubic cell (scc) [Figure 3(b)]
- is called the fundamental, repeating unit in the array of
spheres.
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Other Types of Cubic Cell

◎Face-centered cubic cell (fcc)

- there are spheres at the center
of each of the six faces of the cube,
in addition to the eight corner
spheres.
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 Figure 4. Three types of
cubic cells. In reality, the spheres representing
atoms, molecules, or ions are in contact with one
another in these cubic cells.

Chang, 2010

28
Other Types of Cubic Cell

◎Body-centered cubic cell (bcc)

- arrangement differs from a simple
cube in that the second layer of spheres
fits into the depressions of the first layer
and the third layer into the depressions
of the second layer (Figure 5).-
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Chang, 2010

Figure 5. Arrangement of identical spheres in a body-centered cube. (a) Top view. (b) Definition of a
body-centered cubic unit cell. (c) There is the equivalent of two complete spheres inside a body-
centered cubic unit cell.

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Other Types of Cubic Cell
Since each unit cell is adjacent to other unit cells
in a crystalline solid, most of the atoms of a cell
are exchanged by adjacent cells. For instance,
in all cubic types, every corner atom belongs to
eight cells of one unit [Figure 6(a)]; an edge
atom is shared by four unit cells [Figure 6(b)],
and a face-centered atom is shared by two unit
Figure 6(c)]. 31
Figure 6.(a) A corner atom in any cell is shared by eight unit cells. (is
shared by four unit cells.
b) An edge atom (c) A face-centered atom in a cubic cell is shared
by two unit cells. 32
Closest Packing

◎ Closest packing, the most efficient arrangement of

spheres, starts with the structure shown in Figure 7(a),
which we call layer A. Focusing on the only sphere
enclosed, we see that in that layer it has six immediate
neighbors. The spheres are packed into the depressions
between the spheres in the second layer (which we call
layer B) in the first layer, so that all the spheres are as
close together as possible [Figure 7(b)].
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Figure 7.
(a) In a close-packed layer, each
sphere is in contact with six others.
(b) Spheres in the second layer fit into
the depressions between the first-
layer spheres.
(c) In the hexagonal close-packed
structure, each third-layer sphere
is directly over a first-layer sphere.
(d) In the cubic close-packed
structure, each third-layer sphere
fits into a depression that is directly
over a depression in the first layer.

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 Closest Packing
◎ There are two ways that the second layer can be filled by a
third-layer sphere to achieve the nearest packing. The
spheres should fit into the depressions so that each sphere
of the third layer is directly over the sphere of the first layer
[Figure 7(c)]. We often name the third layer layer A, since
there is no distinction between the arrangement of the first
and third layers. Alternatively, the spheres of the third layer
can fit into the depressions that lie directly in the first layer
over the depressions [Figure 7(d)]. We name the third layer
layer C in this case. 35
Figure 8. Exploded views of
(a) a hexagonal close-packed
structure and
(b) a cubic close-packed
structure.
The arrow is tilted to show
the face-centered cubic unit
cell more clearly. Note that
this arrangement is the same
as the face-centered unit cell.

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Closest Packing
◎ The ABA arrangement is known as the hexagonal close-packed (hcp)
structure, and
◎ the ABC arrangement is the cubic close-packed (ccp) structure, which
corresponds to the already described face-centered cube.
Notice that in the hcp structure, spheres occupy the same vertical position in
every other layer (ABABAB. . .), while in the ccp structure, spheres occupy the
same vertical position in every fourth layer (ABCABCA. . .). Every sphere has a
coordination number of 12 in both structures (each sphere is in contact with six
spheres in its own layer, three spheres in the layer above, and three spheres in
the layer below). The most effective way of packing identical spheres in a unit cell
is by using both the hcp and ccp structures, and there is no way to increase the
amount of coordination to beyond 12.
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Closest Packing
◎ It is natural to ask why a series of related substances, such as the
transition metals or the noble gases, would form different crystal
structures. The answer lies in the relative stability of a particular
crystal structure, which is governed by intermolecular forces. Thus,
magnesium metal has the hcp structure because this arrangement of
Mg atoms results in the greatest stability of the solid.
◎ Figure 9 summarizes the relationship between the atomic radius r and
the edge length a of a simple cubic cell, a body-centered cubic cell,
and a face-centered cubic cell. This relationship can be used to
determine the atomic radius of a sphere if the density of the crystal is
known.
38
Figure 9. The
relationship between
the edge length (a)
and radius (r) of
atoms in the simple
cubic cell, body-
centered cubic cell,
and face-centered
cubic cell.

39
Amorphous Solids
◎ In crystalline form, solids are most stable.
However, if a solid is quickly formed (If a liquid is
rapidly cooled, for example), the atoms or
molecules do not have time to align themselves in
places other than those of a normal crystal and
may be locked. It is said that the resulting solid is
amorphous.
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Amorphous Solids

◎Amorphous solids, such as

glass, lack a regular three-
dimensional arrangement of
atoms.
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GLASS
◎ Glass is one of the most important and versatile products in civilization.
It is also one of the oldest articles of glass, dating back to 1000 b.c.
◎ Glass commonly refers to an optically transparent fusion product of
inorganic materials that has cooled to a rigid state without crystallizing.
◎ We mean that the glass is formed by mixing molten silicon dioxide
(SiO2), its main ingredient, with compounds such as sodium oxide
(Na2O), boron oxide (B2O3), and color and other properties of certain
transition metal oxides.
◎ Glass behaves more like a liquid than a solid in certain ways. Studies
of X-ray diffraction show that long-range periodic order is missing in
glass. 42
GLASS
The glass color is primarily due to the presence of metal ions (as oxides).
o Green glass, contains oxide of iron(III), Fe2O3, or oxide of copper(II),
CuO;
◎ Yellow glass contains uranium(IV) oxide, UO2; cobalt(II)
◎ Blue glass copper are present
◎ Red glass (II)Oxides, CoO and CuO; and small pieces of gold and
copper.

Note that most of the ions mentioned here are derived from metals in
transition.
43
Figure 10.Two-dimensional
representation of
(a) crystalline
quartz and
(b) noncrystalline quartz
glass. The small spheres
represent silicon. In
reality, the structure of
quartz is three-
dimensional.
Each Si atom is tetrahedrally
bonded to four O atoms.

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Table 1.Composition and Properties of Three Types
of Glass

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Lets check what you have learned.

1. Which has a greater density, crystalline SiO 2 or amorphous SiO2?

Why?
2. Imagine the primitive cubic lattice. Now imagine grabbing the top of
it and stretching it straight up. All angles remain 90°. What kind of
primitive lattice have you made?
3. The densities of the elements K, Ca, Sc, and Ti are 0.86, 1.5,
3.2,and 4.5 g/cm3, respectively. One of these elements crystallizes
in a body-centered cubic structure; the other three crystallize in a
face-centered cubic structure. Which one crystallizes in the body-
centered cubic structure? Justify your answer.
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◎
Bring the following next meeting:
Lab gown,
naphthalene balls
and denatured
alcohol
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Thank you!!!

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