One or more options correct
In an ionic solid the anions (radius ) form a cubic close-packed array and the cations occupy all the octahedral voids, just touching the anions, with anions also just touching each other along a face diagonal of the unit cell (edge ). Which of the following is/are correct?
- A. Each has six nearest anion neighbours
- B. Each has twelve nearest anion neighbours
- C. The fraction of the unit-cell volume occupied by the ions is
- D. The edge length is
Show answer and solution
Answer: A, B
The structure is rock salt. (A) Correct: octahedral voids give coordination number 6. (B) Correct: anions are in a face-centred cubic array, so each has 12 nearest anion neighbours at . (C) Incorrect: the anion array alone has packing fraction , but the cations fill the voids too. Touching along the face diagonal gives , so and the octahedral void radius is . The cell has 4 anions and 4 cations, so the fraction is . (D) Incorrect: applies to a body-diagonal contact (bcc), whereas here the contact is along the face diagonal and .
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