A fresh approach to teaching crystallographic symmetry. Rather than being swamped by heavy algebraic notation, the reader is taken through a series of simple and beautiful examples from the visual arts, and taught how to analyse them employing the 'pictorial' diagrams used in the International Tables of Crystallography.

International Tables for Crystallography Volume G, Definition and exchange of crystallographic data, describes the standard data exchange and archival file format (the Crystallographic Information File, or CIF) used throughout crystallography. It provides in-depth information vital for small-molecule, inorganic and macromolecular crystallographers, mineralogists, chemists, materials scientists, solid-state physicists and others who wish to record or use the results of a single-crystal or powder diffraction experiment. The volume also provides the detailed data ontology necessary for programmers and database managers to design interoperable computer applications. The accompanying CD-ROM contains the CIF dictionaries in machine-readable form and a collection of libraries and utility programs. This volume is an essential guide and reference for programmers of crystallographic software, data managers handling crystal-structure information and practising crystallographers who need to use CIF.

The book presents the basic information needed to understand and to organize the huge amount of known structures of crystalline solids. Its basis is crystallographic group theory (space group theory), with special emphasis on the relations between the symmetry properties of crystals.

This book invites you on a systematic tour through the fascinating world of crystals and their symmetries. The reader will gain an understanding of the symmetry of external crystal forms (morphology) and become acquainted with all the symmetry elements needed to classify and describe crystal structures. The book explains the context in a very vivid, non-mathematical way and captivates with clear, high-quality illustrations. Online materials accompany the book; including 3D models the reader can explore on screen to aid in the spatial understanding of the structure of crystals. After reading the book, you will not only know what a space group is and how to read the International Tables for Crystallography, but will also be able to interpret crystallographic specifications in specialist publications. If questions remain, you also have the opportunity to ask the author on the book's website.

This Second Edition provides solid state scientists, who are not necessarily experts in crystallography, with an understandable and comprehensive guide to the new International Tables for Crystallography. The basic ideas of symmetry, lattices, point groups, and space groups are explained in a clear and detailed manner. Notation is introduced in a step-by-step way so that the reader is supplied with the tools necessary to derive and apply space group information. Of particular interest in this second edition are the discussions of space groups application to such timely topics as high-temperature superconductors, phase transitions, semiconductor superlattices, incommensurate modulation, and icosahedral symmetry.

This book provides a clear introduction to topics which are essential to students in a wide range of scientific disciplines but which are otherwise only covered in specialised and mathematically detailed texts. It shows how crystal structures may be built up from simple ideas of atomic packing and co-ordination, it develops the concepts of crystal symmetry, point and space groups by way of two dimensional examples of patterns and tilings, it explains the concept of the reciprocal lattice in simple terms and shows its importance in an understanding of light, X-ray and electron diffraction. Practical examples of the applications of these techniques are described and also the importance of diffraction in the performance of optical instruments. The book is also of value to the general reader since it shows, by biographical and historical references, how the subject has developed and thereby indicates some of the excitement of scientific discovery.

This textbook is a complete and clear introduction to the field of crystallography. It includes an extensive discussion on the 14 Bravais lattices and their reciprocals, the basic concepts of point- and space-group symmetry, the crystal structure of elements and binary compounds, and much more.The purpose of this textbook is to illustrate rather th