unit cell
- noun
- /ˈjuːnɪt sɛl/
- Specialized
:
célula unitaria
- This complicated structure, which took many years to sort out, has 19 dangling bonds per unit cell, compared to 49 bonds in an unreconstructed cell of the same size.
- unit cell of the crystal
Examples
-
Depending on the complexity of the resulting structure, the number of atoms N that one must consider in the unit cell will range from 16 to 400.
Academic text (1999) -
The dipoles are packed so that the components of the dipole moment in each unit cell add up in the direction normal to the flat surfaces.
Academic text (2005) -
So in real space, you have a unit cell structure that is the thing, the pattern that then gets repeated to make the crystal.
-
So, so there's nothing in this unit cell that could do this.
-
Sodium chloride over here, this is a unit cell of common sort.
-
The unit cells of pyroelectric materials have a dipole moment.
Academic text (2005) -
They then remove enough rods from the center to leave a hole the size of seven unit cells.
Academic text (1999) -
After determining the position of the probe within the unit cell of the target crystal, one can calculate approximate target phases.
Academic text (2006) -
Since the pioneering work of Bednorz and Müller, a rather large family of layered copper oxide superconductors with complicated unit cells has been discovered.
Academic text (1993) -
The unit cell is the fundamental building block of the crystal structure, repeated in three dimensions.
How Large
- Specialized
- Specialized
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase transparently combines 'unit' (a component) with 'cell' (a small compartment or structural unit), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer it refers to a basic/small building block. However, the precise crystallographic sense — the smallest repeating unit in a lattice — is a technical extension that may not be fully predictable from everyday meanings of 'cell', making the term only partly transparent.
Etymology
The term unit cell comes from the idea of a tiny 'box' that repeats to make a whole crystal. Think of one floor tile or a single Lego brick: the unit is one piece and the cell is the small box shape, so unit cell means the 'smallest structural unit' that builds the whole crystal.
