CHEMISTRY GLOSSARY

In a cubic close-packed (ccp) arrangement of atoms, the unit cell consists of four layers of atoms. The top and bottom layers (a) contain six atoms at the corners of a hexagon and one atom at the center of each hexagon. The atoms in the second layer (b) fit into depressions in the first layer. The atoms in the third layer (c) occupy a different set of depressions than those in the first. The cubic close packed structure can be made by piling layers in the a-b-c-a-b-c-a-b-c... sequence.