α-Quartz 5: a helical chain of silicon-oxygen bonds

In the structure to the left the silicon and oxygen atoms that connect to form the helical chain from the previous page are coloured blue, as are the bonds between them. You can see that one third of the highlighted silicons are shared with helical chains involving the non-highlighted silicons. The remaining highlighted silicons are sharing to form other helical chains with silicons in neighbouring unit cells.

Go to page 6 to look at the helix in terms of the silicon atoms alone.

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