Dissemination of IT for the Promotion of Materials Science (DoITPoMS)

DoITPoMS Teaching & Learning Packages Atomic Scale Structure of Materials

Atomic Scale Structure of Materials

This teaching and learning package provides an introduction to crystalline, polycrystalline and amorphous solids, and how the atomic-level structure has radical consequences for some of the properties of the material. It introduces the use of polarised light to examine the optical properties of materials, and shows how a variety of simple models can be used to visualise important features of the microstructure of materials.

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Photograph of a quartz crystal

First created: April 2004. Amendments made: January 2008