Crystal structure
Crystal structure is described in terms of the geometry of arrangement of particles in the unit cell. The unit cell is defined as the smallest repeating unit having the full symmetry of the crystal structure. The geometry of the unit cell is defined as a parallelepiped, providing six lattice parameters taken as the lengths of the cell edges ("a", "b", "c") and the angles between them (α, β, γ). The positions of particles inside the unit cell are described by the fractional coordinates ("xi", "yi", "zi") along the cell edges, measured from a reference point. It is only necessary to report the coordinates of a smallest asymmetric subset of particles. This group of particles may be chosen so that it occupies the smallest physical space, which means that not all particles need to be physically located inside the boundaries given by the lattice parameters. All other particles of the unit cell are generated by the symmetry operations that characterize the symmetry of the unit cell. The collection of symmetry operations of the unit cell is expressed formally as the space group of the crystal structure.