What Are the Properties of Metallic Crystals?
Gold Wasser gold / Gold water gold image by Nazar Chabara from Fotolia.com jQuery(document).ready(function(){ jQuery(‘#jsArticleStep1 span.image a:first’).attr(‘href’,’http://i.ehow.com/images/a05/n0/77/properties-metallic-crystals_-1.1-800X800.jpg’); }); Metals are crystalline at the atomic level. This means that within a sample of pure metal, the metal atoms arrange themselves in an orderly fashion, much like a box full of ping-pong balls. The atoms are tightly packed, immobile, and organized in a repeated pattern–each individual atom is surrounded by the same number of neighbor atoms. The outer electrons of metal atoms are free to float throughout the crystalline structures. This structure gives metals some interesting properties. Geometric Arrangements Metallic crystals occur in three basic arrangements. In the “body-centered cubic structure,” each atom is surrounded by eight neighbors. Some common metals with this structure are sodium, potassium and iron. In the “face-centered cu
