Diamond (Crystal Lattice)

A mineral is a naturally occurring homogeneous solid with a definite chemical composition and a highly ordered atomic arrangement. Minerals (crystals) have an ordered internal arrangement of atoms. This ordered arrangement shows symmetry, i.e. the atoms are arranged in a symmetrical fashion on a three dimensional network referred to as **a crystal lattice **.

**Diamond** is composed of four groups of tetrahedrally arranged carbon atoms covalently bonded (hybridisation sp³), which are organized in the diamond lattice. This diamond lattice is a variation of the face centered cubic lattice, which consists of the atoms (lattice points) identified in the corners and the center of each of the six faces of the cube. However, in the case of the diamond lattice are two identical atoms per lattice point and the distance between the two atoms equals one quarter of the body diagonal of the cube. The length of the side of the unit cell is 0.356 nm.