Crystal Lattice Structures:	Reference Date:  1 Jan 1997
	Last Modified: 13 Mar 2007

The Hexagonal Graphite (A9) Crystal Structure

You can now

• see the structure from several perspectives;
• examine the structure with an external viewer; or
• download the coordinates of the atoms in these pictures in XYZ format.
• visualize the structure (Uses the JMOL Applet)

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• This is a revised version of the original graphite structure phase. We have preserved the old graphite structure page here.
  
  
• According to Wyckoff, hexagonal graphite may be either flat, space group P6₃/mmc (#194) or buckled, spage group P6₃mc (#186). If it is buckled, the buckling parameter is small, less than 1/20 of the ``c'' parameter of the hexagonal unit cell.
  
  
• We will assign the A9 Strukturbericht Designation to the unbuckled structure, leaving a separate page for the Buckled (P6₃mc) graphite structure.
• 6 June 2006: Fixed exponents in Cartesian components of B₃ and B₄ basis vectors.
• 17 Feb 2007: Added C-for-Carbon labels to the basis vectors.

Experimentally, a

• Rhombohedral (R3m) graphite structure is also observed.

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• Prototype: C (graphite)
• Pearson Symbol: hP4
• Strukturbericht Designation: A9
• Space Group: P6₃/mmc (Cartesian and lattice coordinate listings available)
• Number: 194
• Reference: Wyckoff Vol I, p 26.
• Other compunds with this structure: LiB
• Primitive Vectors:

  A1	=	½ a X - ½ 31/2 a Y
  A2	=	½ a X + ½ 31/2 a Y
  A3	=	c Z

• Basis Vectors:

  B1	=	¼ A3	=	¼ c Z	(C)	(2b)
  B2	=	¾ A3	=	¾ c Z	(C)	(2b)
  B3	=	1/3 A1 + 2/3 A2 + ¼ A3	=	½ a X + ½ 3-½ a Y + ¼ c Z	(C)	(2c)
  B4	=	2/3 A1 + 1/3 A2 + ¾ A3	=	½ a X - ½ 3-½ a Y + ¾ c Z	(C)	(2c)

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Structures indexed by: Strukturbericht Symbol Pearson Symbol Space Group Prototype

This is a mirror of an old page created at the Naval Research Laboratory Center for Computational Materials Science The maintained successor is hosted at http://www.aflowlib.org/CrystalDatabase/ and published as M. Mehl et al., Comput. Mater. Sci. 136 (Supp.), S1-S828 (2017).