The organization of atoms in a material is one way in which materials differ. Some materials, such as silicon and germanium, have repeating arrangements of atoms or very fixed structures throughout the material, which we call crystals. There may actually be two levels of atomic organization for crystalline materials. The first is the organization of individual atoms. The atoms in the crystal are arranged in a unit cell structure that repeats throughout the crystal. Another term referring to unit cell structure is lattice, a crystalline material has a specific lattice structure and atoms are located at specific points in the lattice structure. The number of atoms, relative positions, and binding energies between atoms in the unit cell can bring about many properties of the material, and each crystalline material has a unique unit cell. Please browse our high quality crystal materials below and feel free to contact us with any questions!