crystallography Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a fundamental subject in the fields of materials science and solid-state physics ( condensed matter physics). The wor ...

, interstitial sites, holes or voids are the empty space that exists between the packing of atoms (spheres) in the

crystal structure In crystallography, crystal structure is a description of the ordered arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules in a crystalline material. Ordered structures occur from the intrinsic nature of the constituent particles to form symmetric pattern ...

. The holes are easy to see if you try to pack circles together; no matter how close you get them or how you arrange them, you will have empty space in between. The same is true in a unit cell; no matter how the atoms are arranged, there will be interstitial sites present between the atoms. These sites or holes can be filled with other atoms (

interstitial defect In materials science, an interstitial defect is a type of point crystallographic defect where an atom of the same or of a different type, occupies an interstitial site in the crystal structure. When the atom is of the same type as those alread ...

). The picture with packed circles is only a 2D representation. In a

crystal lattice In geometry and crystallography, a Bravais lattice, named after , is an infinite array of discrete points generated by a set of discrete translation operations described in three dimensional space by : \mathbf = n_1 \mathbf_1 + n_2 \mathbf_2 + n ...

, the atoms (spheres) would be packed in a 3D arrangement. This results in different shaped interstitial sites depending on the arrangement of the atoms in the lattice.

Close packed

A close packed unit cell, both face-centered cubic and hexagonal close packed, can form two different shaped holes. Looking at the three green spheres in the hexagonal packing illustration at the top of the page, they form a triangle-shaped hole. If an atom is arranged on top of this triangular hole it forms a tetrahedral interstitial hole. If the three atoms in the layer above are rotated and their triangular hole sits on top of this one, it forms an octahedral interstitial hole. In a close-packed structure there are 4 atoms per unit cell and it will have 4 octahedral voids (1:1 ratio) and 8 tetrahedral voids (1:2 ratio) per unit cell. The tetrahedral void is smaller in size and could fit an atom with a radius 0.225 times the size of the atoms making up the lattice. An octahedral void could fit an atom with a radius 0.441 times the size of the atoms making up the lattice. An atom that fills this empty space could be larger than this ideal radius ratio, which would lead to a distorted lattice due to pushing out the surrounding atoms, but it cannot be smaller than this ratio.

Face-centered cubic (FCC)

If half of the tetrahedral sites of the parent FCC lattice are filled by ions of opposite charge, the structure formed is the

zincblende crystal structure Sphalerite (sometimes spelled sphaelerite) is a sulfide mineral with the chemical formula . It is the most important ore of zinc. Sphalerite is found in a variety of deposit types, but it is primarily in sedimentary exhalative, Mississippi-Va ...

. If all the tetrahedral sites of the parent FCC lattice are filled by ions of opposite charge, the structure formed is the fluorite structure or antifluorite structure. If all the octahedral sites of the parent FCC lattice are filled by ions of opposite charge, the structure formed is the rock-salt structure.

Hexagonal close packed (HCP)

If half of the tetrahedral sites of the parent HCP lattice are filled by ions of opposite charge, the structure formed is the wurtzite crystal structure. If all the octahedral sites of the anion HCP lattice are filled by cations, the structure formed is the nickel arsenide structure.

Simple cubic

A simple cubic unit cell, with stacks of atoms arranged as if at the eight corners of a cube would form a single cubic hole or void in the center. If these voids are occupied by ions of opposite charge from the parent lattice, the cesium chloride structure is formed.

Body-centered cubic (BCC)

A body-centered cubic unit cell has six octahedral voids located at the center of each face of the unit cell, and twelve further ones located at the midpoint of each edge of the same cell, for a total of six net octahedral voids. Additionally, there are 24 tetrahedral voids located in a square spacing around each octahedral void, for a total of twelve net tetrahedral voids. These tetrahedral voids are not local maxima and are not technically voids, but they do occasionally appear in multi-atom unit cells.

Interstitial defect

An interstitial defect refers to additional atoms occupying some interstitial sites at random as

crystallographic defect A crystallographic defect is an interruption of the regular patterns of arrangement of atoms or molecules in crystalline solids. The positions and orientations of particles, which are repeating at fixed distances determined by the unit cell para ...

s in a crystal which normally has empty interstitial sites by default.

References

{{reflist Crystallography Crystals Materials science