Topological and metrical property characterization of radical subunits for ternary hard sphere crystals

Quantitative characterization on the topological and metrical properties of radical subunits (polyhedra) for two new ternary hard sphere crystals was studied. These two ideal crystalline structures are numerically constructed by filling small and medium spheres into interstices (corresponding to regular tetrahedral and octahedral pores) of perfect face centered cubic (FCC) and hexagonal close packed (HCP) crystals formed by the packing of large spheres. Topological properties such as face number, edge number, vertex number of each radical polyhedron (RP), edge number of each RP face and metrical properties such as volume, surface area, total perimeter and pore volume of each RP, area and perimeter of each RP face were analyzed and compared. The results show that even though the overall packing densities for FCC and HCP ternary crystals are the same, different characteristics of radical polyhedra for corresponding spheres in these two crystals can be identified. That is, in the former structure RPs are more symmetric than those in the latter; the orientations of corresponding RP in the latter are twice as many as that in the former. Moreover, RP topological and metrical properties in the HCP ternary crystal are much more complicated than those in the FCC ternary crystal. These differences imply the structure and property differences of these two ternary crystals. Analyses of RPs provide intensive understanding of pores in the structure.