Diamond (Crystal Lattice)

A mineral is a naturally occurring, homogeneous solid with a specific chemical composition and a highly ordered atomic structure. Minerals (or crystals) have an internal arrangement of atoms that is both ordered and symmetrical, forming a three-dimensional network known as a **crystal lattice**. **Diamond** consists of carbon atoms arranged in tetrahedral groups, with each atom covalently bonded through sp³ hybridization to four other carbon atoms, forming a structure known as the diamond lattice. This diamond lattice is a variation of the face-centered cubic (FCC) lattice, in which atoms are located at each corner and in the center of each of the six faces of the cube. In the diamond lattice, there are two atoms per lattice point, positioned so that the distance between these atoms is one-quarter of the body diagonal of the cube. The unit cell of diamond has a side length of 0.356 nm.