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body-centred cubic structure
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Diagram showing three common metallic crystal structures: body-centred cubic with one atom at the center, face-centred cubic with atoms at each face and corner, and hexagonal close-packed with layers of atoms forming a hexagonal pattern. cubic lattices crystal structures
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body-centred cubic structure

crystalline form
Also known as: bcc structure
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Diagram showing three common metallic crystal structures: body-centred cubic with one atom at the center, face-centred cubic with atoms at each face and corner, and hexagonal close-packed with layers of atoms forming a hexagonal pattern.
The commonest metallic crystal structures.

The body-centered cubic (bcc) lattice is a crystal structure where atoms are arranged in a cubic pattern with an atom at each corner and one atom in the center of the cube. This arrangement results in each atom having eight nearest neighbors. While the face-centered cubic (fcc) and hexagonal-close-packed (hcp) structures are more compact, filling 74% of the volume, the bcc structure fills about 68% of the volume. Many metals, such as iron, chromium, and tungsten, adopt the bcc structure. In some binary crystals, like cesium chloride, the structure is based on bcc, with alternating cesium and chlorine atoms. Certain fullerene compounds, such as K6C60, also exhibit a bcc structure.12

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3 Britannica Sources
  1. crystal - Structures of binary crystals
  2. crystal - Structures of metals
  3. crystal - Structures of nonmetallic elements

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