Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-a-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2019/paper-2/section-c/c10/a/solution
Past exam of the physics A course of the University of Cambridge 2019 Paper 2 Section C C10 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-18
A Bravais lattice is the set of positions generated by integer combinations of independent primitive translation vectors, . Every lattice point has the same translational environment. A crystal may additionally have a basis of several atoms attached to each lattice point; those atoms are not automatically separate points of its Bravais lattice.
A unit cell is a region whose translated copies fill the crystal without gaps or overlaps. It can be chosen for convenient symmetry, and a conventional cell may contain several lattice points. A primitive unit cell is a smallest such repeating cell, containing exactly one lattice point when boundary sharing is counted. Its shape is not unique, but its volume is fixed for a given lattice. For a monatomic Bravais crystal, each primitive cell contains one atom.
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