Crystal Lattice Structures:	Reference Date:  1 Jan 1996
	Last Modified:  6 Mar 2012

The Wurtzite (B4) 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 the hexagonal analog of the zincblende lattice, i.e. the stacking of the ZnS dimers is ABABAB...
• Replacing both the Zn and S atoms by C (or Si) gives the hexagonal diamond structure.
• The ``ideal'' structure, where the nearest-neighbor environment of each atom is the same as in zincblende, is achieved when we take c/a = (8/3)<sup>1/2</sup> and u = 3/8.
• In the extreme case u = 1/2 this structure becomes the B<sub>k</sub> (BN) structure.
• (Note that we have arbitrarily chosen the ``u'' parameter for the Zinc atoms to be zero.)
• 30 March 2007: It's CdSe, not CiSe.
• 5 February 2009: A loyal reader pointed out the lack of an a in the Y component of the B₂ vector.

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• Prototype: ZnS (Wurtzite)
• Pearson Symbol: hP4
• Strukturbericht Designation: B4
• Space Group: P6₃mc (Cartesian and lattice coordinate listings available)
• Number: 186
• Other Compounds with this Structure: ZnO, SiC, AlN, CdSe, BN, C(Hexagonal Diamond)
• Reference: Kisi and Elcombe, Acta Cryst. C45, 1867 (1989).
• 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	=	1/3 A1 + 2/3 A2	=	½ a X + ½ 3-1/2 a Y	(Zn)	(2b)
  B2	=	2/3 A1 + 1/3 A2 + ½ A3	=	½ a X - ½ 3-1/2 a Y + ½ c Z	(Zn)	(2b)
  B3	=	1/3 A1 + 2/3 A2 + u A3	=	½ a X + ½ 3-1/2 a Y + u c Z	(S)	(2b)
  B4	=	2/3 A1 + 1/3 A2 + (½ + u) A3	=	½ a X - ½ 3-1/2 a Y + (½ + u) c Z	(S)	(2b)

See these vectors in LaTeX output format.

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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).