ODYSSEY Crystal Surfaces app for iPhone and iPad

Miller indices provide the standard notation for labeling surfaces in crystallography. While many tools are available for the visualization of specific cuts through the unit cell for given Miller indices, it is commonly left open as to what this actually means at the atomic scale. Does the surface include the same symmetry elements as the lattice structure? Are the surface atoms close-packed? What is the degree of corrugation? ODYSSEY Crystal Surfaces presents a set of generic models for the low-index lattice planes for the most common elemental structure types, including: the face-centered cubic, body-centered cubic, simple cubic, hexagonally close-packed, diamond-type, and graphite lattices.

Models can be inspected at any orientation and zoom level and with a choice of drawing radius for the atoms. Color-coding is used to indicate the degree of exposure to the surface for different layers of atoms. In the metallic structure types, a clipping sphere can be defined, highlighting the local surroundings of a selected atom and hiding the remainder of the sample.

A glossary, comments section, and set of multiple choice questions (with randomized options) are also included.