Rotate real 3D ball-and-stick models of the most important crystal structures — right in your browser.
Why this tool exists. Static textbook pictures of unit cells are hard to read. A 3D model you can rotate makes the difference between "sort of understanding" FCC packing and "seeing" why each atom has 12 nearest neighbors. This explorer ships ~25 of the structures that every solid-state and inorganic chemistry course covers, rendered interactively with Three.js.
How to use it. Pick a structure from the dropdown. The model loads inside the preview area — drag to rotate, and toggle the checkboxes to add the unit-cell edges, start auto-rotation, or switch from ball-and-stick to space-filling (CPK) spheres.
What's shown. For every structure: crystal system (cubic / hexagonal / tetragonal / trigonal / orthorhombic), space group (Hermann–Mauguin symbol + number), lattice constants a/b/c (Å) and angles α/β/γ, Z (formula units per cell), coordination numbers, and teaching notes. The lattice constants are experimental room-temperature values from Materials Project, WebElements, and the primary literature.
An important scientific caveat. A chemical formula does not uniquely determine a crystal structure. Carbon is diamond and graphite; CaCO₃ is calcite and aragonite; TiO₂ is rutile and anatase. This tool therefore shows the most common textbook polymorph for each formula, not a prediction from the formula alone. Real structures come from X-ray diffraction and live in CIF files.
The library covers.
- Metals: Cu, Au, Ag, Al (FCC) · Fe-α, W (BCC) · Mg, Zn, Ti-α (HCP)
- Nonmetals: diamond, graphite, Si, Ge
- AX ionic (1:1): NaCl rock salt, CsCl, ZnS sphalerite, ZnS wurtzite
- AX₂ ionic: CaF₂ fluorite, TiO₂ rutile, SiO₂ α-quartz
- Perovskites: CaTiO₃ (ideal cubic), MgSiO₃ bridgmanite
- Layered & others: Na₂O (anti-fluorite), CdCl₂, CdI₂, Al₂O₃ corundum
Tip. Compare Zn (HCP, non-ideal c/a = 1.86) with Mg (HCP, near-ideal c/a = 1.62) — you can see why zinc's structure is compressed. Compare NaCl (octahedral, CN=6) with CsCl (cubic, CN=8) to see how the cation/anion radius ratio controls the coordination.