crystallographic space group

Since the unit cells are arranged repeatedly in a crystal, symmetry operations by which a point in a crystal is transformed to an equivalent point of a neighboring unit cell are allowed as symmetry operations leaving the crystal unchanged. These symmetry elements are screw axes and glide planes. "Crystallographic space groups" are constructed by the combinations of the screw axes and the glide planes with the symmetry elements of the crystallographic point groups. There exist 230 space groups.

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