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13: Phase Diagrams and Crystalline Solids

  • Page ID
    25429
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    • 13.1: Sliding Glaciers
    • 13.2: Phase Diagrams
      The states of matter exhibited by a substance under different temperatures and pressures can be summarized graphically in a phase diagram, which is a plot of pressure versus temperature. Phase diagrams contain discrete regions corresponding to the solid, liquid, and gas phases. The solid and liquid regions are separated by the melting curve of the substance, and the liquid and gas regions are separated by its vapor pressure curve, which ends at the critical point.
    • 13.3: Crystalline Solids- Determining Their Structure by X-Ray Crystallography
      Since X-ray photons are very energetic, they have relatively short wavelengths. Thus, typical X-ray photons act like rays when they encounter macroscopic objects, like teeth, and produce sharp shadows. However, since atoms are on the order of 0.1 nm in size, X-rays can be used to detect the location, shape, and size of atoms and molecules. The process is called X-ray diffraction, and it involves the interference of X-rays to produce patterns.
    • 13.4: Crystalline Solids- Unit Cells and Basic Structures
      When substances form solids, they tend to pack together to form ordered arrays of atoms, ions, or molecules that we call crystals. Why does this order arise, and what kinds of arrangements are possible? We will limit our discussion to cubic crystals, which form the simplest and most symmetric of all the lattice types. Cubic lattices are also very common — they are formed by many metallic crystals, and also by most of the alkali halides, several of which we will study as examples.
    • 13.5: Crystalline Solids- The Fundamental Types
      Some substances form crystalline solids consisting of particles in a very organized structure; others form amorphous (noncrystalline) solids with an internal structure that is not ordered. The main types of crystalline solids are ionic solids, metallic solids, covalent network solids, and molecular solids. The properties of the different kinds of crystalline solids are due to the types of particles of which they consist, the arrangements of the particles, and the strengths of the attractions bet
    • 13.6: The Structure of Ionic Solids
      In this section we deal mainly with a very small but imporant class of solids that are commonly regarded as composed of ions. We will see how the relative sizes of the ions determine the energetics of such compounds. And finally, we will point out that not all solids that are formally derived from ions can really be considered "ionic" at all.
    • 13.7: Network Covalent Atomic Solids- Carbon and Silicates
      Covalent solids are formed by networks or chains of atoms or molecules held together by covalent bonds. A perfect single crystal of a covalent solid is therefore a single giant molecule.


    13: Phase Diagrams and Crystalline Solids is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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