McCaw Chemistry

Resources written by Chas McCaw for sixth form chemistry teaching and beyond.

 Home Videos Crystal Structures Lanthanide Calculations Book Recommendations

Copper 6: the cuboctahedron and the copper unit cell

Since all the atoms in a face-centred cubic unit cell are on the outside of the cell, we need two cells to see a cuboctahedron. In two adjacent cells that share a cubic face, the copper atom in the centre of the shared face of the two cells, which is coloured green in the image on the left, can be seen to be at the centre of a cuboctahedron. The atoms making up the cuboctahedron around the green centre are highlighted in blue.

Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5