Basic Elements of Crystallography

An excellent primer on crystallography — a discipline necessary for everyone concerned with the solid state — overarching the fields of materials science, metallurgy, condensed matter physics and micro- and nanotechnology. Abundant and clear drawings allow the authors to introduce the concepts of crystal structures and lattices in a very easy way, starting from one-dimensional cases and proceeding to all 14 Bravais lattices. The book expounds on the close-packed monoatomic structures as well as several important binary compounds. The ideas of the reciprocal lattice are explained in a straightforward manner. The strengths of this book are the excellent images and a large number of tabulated lattice parameters. This textbook is definitely a good starting point for learning crystallography or teaching introductory courses. I would certainly recommend this to my students, while professionals may also enjoy reading it.

~Prof. Boris I. Yakobson, Rice University, USA

Crystals are viewed as objects of nature which can be described by a set of few vectors. The consequent restriction to elementary topics and elementary methods, however, goes hand in hand with an intuitive, explicit and very detailed presentation of the subject, and experienced teachers like Professor Szwacka know that the most important means in mastering crystallography is visualization. In the text, more than 150 well-designed figures serve this purpose. The detailed description of the crystals of elements and a number of binary compounds will certainly be appreciated by undergraduates and graduates in physics as well as in other science disciplines. This fine book provides the appropriate basic knowledge of crystallography both for those who are satisfied with introductory level and for those who like to go for more. The authors deserve acknowledgement for their didactic skills.

~Prof. Janos Hajdu, Structural Biology Labs, Biomedical Centre, Sweden

The book succeeds in giving an exhaustive and exact introduction to the systematic representation of matter in three-dimensional space. The exercises presented at the end of each chapter are manageable, whilst ensuring the complete understanding of material explained beforehand. Despite its thorough analysis of the subject, the volume of this book is kept to a minimum.

~Materials Today