The reduced cell: its use in the identification of crystalline materials

A rapid-identification file for crystalline materials is being prepared from the Crystal Data file. In this new file, each cell is represented in its reduced form, which is unique, primitive, and based on the three shortest noncoplanar vectors of the lattice. Unknown materials can be rapidly matched with the same or related crystals in the file. To identify an unknown crystalline material, a primitive cell is first determined experimentally, then it is reduced and checked against the file for a match. Even if the cell of the unknown lattice is not primitive, identification is still possible by calculating appropriate derivative lattices, reducing them, and then checking the file.