Friday, May 31, 2013

anisotropic and isotropic nature of solid

Crystalline solids are anisotropic in nature, that is, some of their physical properties like electrical resistance or refractive index show different values when measured along different directions in the same crystals. This arises from different arrangement of particles in different directions. This is illustrated in figure .

Since the arrangement of particles is different along different directions, the value of same physical property is found to be different along each direction.

Amorphous solids on the other hand are isotropic in nature. It is because there is no long range order in them and arrangement is irregular along all the directions. Therefore, value of any physical property would be same along any direction.

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