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AX-Type Crystal Structures
Some of the common ceramic materials are those in which there are equal numbers of cations and anions. These are often referred to as AX compounds, where A denotes the cation and X the anion. There are several different crystal structures for AX compounds; each is normally named after a common material that assumes the particular structure.
Rock Salt Structure
Perhaps the most common AX crystal structure is the sodium chloride (NaCl), or rock salt, type. The coordination number for both cations and anions is 6, and therefore the cation–anion radius ratio is between approximately 0.414 and 0.732. A unit cell for this crystal structure (Figure 2) is generated from an FCC arrangement of anions with one cation situated at the cube center and one at the center of each of the 12 cube edges. An equivalent crystal structure results from a face-centered arrangement of cations. Thus, the rock salt crystal structure may be thought of as two interpenetrating FCC lattices, one composed of the cations, the other of anions. Some of the common ceramic materials that form with this crystal structure are NaCl, MgO, MnS, LiF, and FeO.