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The Reciprocal Lattice

The document discusses the reciprocal lattice, defining it and relating it to the direct lattice. It defines the reciprocal lattice vectors and how they relate to planes in the direct lattice. It also discusses the volume of the reciprocal unit cell and introduces the Brillouin zone.

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46 views17 pages

The Reciprocal Lattice

The document discusses the reciprocal lattice, defining it and relating it to the direct lattice. It defines the reciprocal lattice vectors and how they relate to planes in the direct lattice. It also discusses the volume of the reciprocal unit cell and introduces the Brillouin zone.

Uploaded by

buddlightbeerlog
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Intro to Solid State Physics

Dr Andy Higginbotham
Lecture 3 - 2015/16
Recap - Structure

• Lattices are a purely mathematical concept describing


translational symmetries

• Represented by lattice vectors

• Can be defined by a unit cell, which may be primitive or


conventional

• Planes within crystals defined by intercepts of planes with


lattice vectors, and using the notation (hkl)
This lecture - The Reciprocal Lattice

• Define the reciprocal lattice

• Understand its behaviour

• Discuss how we interpret it, and how it relates to the


direct lattice
Recap - The lattice

• Lattices are a mathematical construct describing the


translation symmetries of a system

• Define our lattice in terms of three basis vectors, a1, a2


and a3.

• Any lattice vector, ua1+va2+wa3 can be written in terms


of the basis vectors as [uvw]
Definition

• The reciprocal lattice is defined by three basis vectors,


b1, b2 and b3.

• These are related to the direct lattice basis vectors by—

• A general reciprocal lattice vector can be expressed


as —
Dimensional Analysis

• Note the units of these vectors


L2
L3

• So, the reciprocal lattice vectors have dimension of L-1,


so they are not vectors in real space!
Relation to direct lattice vectors

• Dot product of basis vectors -

ai .bj = ij

• Dot product of arbitrary vectors -

G.R = 2⇡(hu + kv + lw) = 2n⇡


Example

• Consider a lattice with the following lattice vectors…

a1 = (1, 0, 0) , a2 = (0, 2, 0) , a3 = (0, 0, 1)

• What does the reciprocal lattice look like?


Example in 2d

• Consider a lattice with the following lattice vectors…


p !
1 3
a1 = (1, 0, 0) , a2 = , ,0
2 2

What does the reciprocal lattice look like?


Demonstration…
Volume of a reciprocal unit cell

• Based on our definitions of the reciprocal lattice basis vectors -

what is the volume of the unit cell?

3
(2⇡)
Vrecip =
Vreal
Relationship to planes
• Returning to our expression for the normal to a plane (hkl) -

⇣a a2 ⌘ ⇣ a1 a3 ⌘
1
n= ^
h k h l
Relationship to planes

• So the plane (hkl) has a normal along -

G = hb1 + kb2 + lb3

• This reciprocal lattice vector has a length -


2⇡
|G| =
dhkl
The Brillouin Zone
The Brillouin Zone
The Brillouin Zone

3 3
2
3 3
2 2
1
3 3
2
3 3
Summary

• For any direct lattice we define an associated reciprocal


lattice

• The reciprocal lattice vectors have units of inverse length,


so can be thought of as wave vectors

• Each reciprocal lattice vector corresponds to a plane in


the direct lattice

• The unit cell of the reciprocal lattice is called the Brillouin


zone

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