Do you know all the materials are made up of atoms? And there are
different types of atoms named as elements? Have you ever wondered why an atom
consists of electrons, protons, and neutrons? Do you know the number of electrons in
the outer shell depicts the number of atoms present? Can you tell me why metals are
ductile compared to hard and brittle ceramics? Why ductile iron becomes harder when
we add a small amount of carbon? Why some materials act as conductors of heat and
electric current and some are insulators [1]? To understand all these concepts one
should learn the atomic structure, chemical bonding, structure of amorphous and
crystalline materials. The present chapter describes all these concepts in a very simple
way.
Keywords: Amorphous materials, BCC, Covalent bonding, Crystalline materials,
FCC, Ionic bonding, Lattice points, Macrostructure, Metallic bonding, Microstructure,
Nanostructure, Radius ratio, Unit cells, Van der Waals bonding.
