This tutorial provides visual support for the discussion of crystal structures, including simple metal lattices and some of the more familiar ionic lattices. The design of the tutorial is to begin with metal lattice cases, pointing out features of those lattices (unit cells and holes) whose understanding paves the way for understanding the more complicated ionic lattices to be introduced later. This tutorial is designed to run correctly with Netscape 3.01 and the plug-in Chime. If this combination of browser and plug-in is not used, we cannot guarantee that the tutorial will run correctly, since the Java-scripting we have used to prepare the module. To view the QuickTime movies that are part of this module, the QuickTime plug-in needs to be installed in the browser.
The opening panel of the tutorial presents two "frames". The left frame always contains a series of options as to what will be shown in the other frame or in temporary windows. (These options are usually presented as a series of pop-up menus, though sometimes "radio buttons" and clickable images are used.)
The options offered under Lattice include metal lattices above and ionic lattices below the default setting, "Pick!". For the metal cases, which are lattices composed of identical spheres, the options offered include four such lattices.
For some lattices, there are links just below the lattice name, links called "Animate" or "Interact". The "Animate" link brings up a list of "radio buttons" which, when pressed in sequence, will show the building up of a section of that lattice, highlighting some features along the way. The "Interact" link brings up a set of check boxes that allow one to turn on and off certain features of the unit cell for that lattice, including both spheres that make up the lattice and holes in the lattice.