What is a Unit Cell?

What is a unit cell? And what are cell parameters or Miller indices? In this video, we make sense of the confusing jumble of information about unit cells and learn why they’re so useful for understanding crystals and surfaces.

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction
01:12 Unit Tiles for 2D Patterns
04:31 Unit Cells for 3D Patterns
10:30 Interpenetrating Unit Cells
11:53 Bravais Lattices
15:02 Planes and Miller Indices
21:24 Crystal Surfaces
23:44 Macroscale Crystals
25:42 Further reading/watching

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Three Twentysix Project Leader: Dr Andrew Robertson
Assistant Editor: Purple Saptari
3D Animations: Es Hiranpakorn
Graphic Design contributor: Maria Sucianto

This video was produced at Kyushu University and supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP21K02904. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Kyushu University, JSPS or MEXT.

[harshit]

Never understood unit cells like this before. Thanks for your efforts!

[abcde_fz]

Your getting an award (conceptually speaking) for BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY in Special Subject videos. Very comfortable lighting, blocking, and depth of field.
Like your sitting across a table in a well-lit room, speaking only to me.

[rebanelson]

Wish this had been available when I was taking a chemistry class back in the early '90s.

[Darthvanger]

RIP textbooks :)
No sane person is going to choose a textbook over this awesome step by step explanation with animations.
Well, if you really want to understand, rather than just turn off your brain and memorise to pass the exam :)
It's not just textbooks though, but lectures and even video lessons may be as dry and confusing.
YouTube makes wonders :) This format of presentation is so comfy and beyond awesome.
No university comes even close :)
Thank you, the best chemistry teacher so far!

[neuro_e]

thanks for this, I almost had a aneurysm in class trying to understand, but this makes it 10034374 times clearer

[maxvanmon]

This is the best chemistry channel on youtube, change my mind

[appamemes]

As a freshman student of chem I absolutely fucking love your videos, and how concise and well thought through they are. Many thanks for the good work!! :)

[mrogelj]

Your channel is awesome and continues to be so helpful! Thanks for breaking these complicated topics down in a really palatable and accessible way, to say nothing of the great cinematography of your videos!

The best video to understand what a unit cell is. Thank you Sir

[ZeroInDaHouse]

This is absolutely fascinating! You won a new subscriber. I stumbled upon this after reading a fascinating theory on how the universe galactic clusters have a cubic crystal structure. I believe our universe IS a bigger fractal of a crystal lattice that might or might not be "living". How amazing is it to think that we are the individual sub atomic particles of that universe holding everything together. Being driven by the thermal heat of the proton aka our sun. Insane. We dont need to build larger atomic colliders we ARE the sub atomic particles on a different scale.

[KimPhilipDalanon]

I feel his control rage in textbooks. Love how you explain thanks.

[INV.EngineerTlais]

I don't know how to thank this great man!

[mw]

I really love your very informative videos. Please go on with them !!! Your work helps a lot in understanding crystallography.

[callme_lyds]

Thank you for this, this helped me understand so much better than my textbook.

[Ganpatthealth]

Wow, your videos are incredible! Thank you so much for your amazing teaching....truly grateful sir

[gentrelane]

Thanks for all the mineralogy flashbacks

[WAMTAT]

If videos like this existed when I was studying I might have stuck with Chemistry.

[raisulinaburningcity]

Thank you for the video. This was very helpful. Can you make a video on reciprocal lattice and Brillouin zone? 🙏🏾

[JK-]

Omg this video is so cute and it’s everything !!

[thhar]

Never had this subject explained quite so simply and elequently before. Someone buy that homeless man a cup of tea!