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Chemistry · Glossary

What is Point defects?

Also known as: point defect · Schottky defect · Frenkel defect

Definition 22.13 University Chemistry — Year 3 · Chapter 22 — Solid-State Chemistry: Bands, Defects and Semiconductors

A point defect is a departure from the perfect crystal localised at one site: a vacancy, an interstitial atom, or a foreign atom. In an ionic crystal, a Schottky defect is a pair of vacancies, one cation and one anion, the ions having gone to the surface; a Frenkel defect is a pair made of a vacancy and the ion that left it, sitting on an interstitial site.

Point defects in a layer of a rock-salt crystal (small dots: cations; large circles: anions; dashed: vacancies). Left: a Schottky pair, one cation and one anion missing. Right: a Frenkel pair, a silver ion moved from its site to an interstitial position.
Point defects in a layer of a rock-salt crystal (small dots: cations; large circles: anions; dashed: vacancies). Left: a Schottky pair, one cation and one anion missing. Right: a Frenkel pair, a silver ion moved from its site to an interstitial position.
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