The authors’ purpose is “to illustrate rather than describe ‘using many words’ the structure of materials.” The book they have produced is a very basic, concise and descriptive introduction to crystallography. It is suitable for readers who wish to grasp the basics.
The authors emphasize the spatial structure of the elements and their binary compounds. Consistent with the work’s stated purpose are drawings of structures that show atomic positions and symmetry properties. There are extensive tables of lattice constants.
Readers will benefit from the solutions to all the exercises for each chapter. Yet for readers in the optics community, the relation between material structures and their mechanical, optical and electrical properties leaves something to be desired, as those correlations and their foundations are not discussed in this book.
Review by Barry R. Masters, Fellow of AAAS, OSA and SPIE
The opinions expressed in the book review section are those of the reviewer and do not necessarily reflect those of OPN or OSA.