This application presents a hexagonal lattice with a hexagon and some suggested unit cells in two dimensions.
Each red disk represents a lattice point containing either a single atom, either a group of atoms or small molecule, macromolecule or even a virus.
In this study the unit cell is an imaginary parallelogram containing an integer number of points. At least one lattice point must be included in it.
The objective of the unit cell is to organize and divide the problem in units as simple as possible.
In crystalline matter the unit cell will always be a parallelepiped. The whole crystal is formed by the repetition of the unit cell along the direction of its edges and at periods equal to the respective cell dimensions.

Exercise

You are invited to drag the mouse over the net and represent other unit cells. Up to 499 lines and points can be drawn. Set the unit cells with same content of lattice points together.

A click on button A will clean and reset to start.

Mouse coordinates are provided as higher precision resource.

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