Not all metals have unit cells with cubic symmetry...

Not all metals have unit cells with cubic symmetry; the final common metallic crystal structure to be discussed has a unit cell that is hexagonal. Figure 3.3a shows a reduced-sphere unit cell for this structure, which is termed hexagonal closepacked (HCP);an assemblage of several HCP unit cells is presented in Figure 3.3b. The top and bottom faces of the unit cell consist of six atoms that form regular hexagons and surround a single atom in the center. Another plane that provides three additional atoms to the unit cell is situated between the top and bottom planes. The atoms in this midplane have as nearest neighbors atoms in both of the adjacent two planes. The equivalent of six atoms is contained in each unit cell; one-sixth of each of the 12 top and bottom face corner atoms, one-half of each of the 2 center face atoms, and all 3 midplane interior atoms. If a and c represent, respectively, the short and long unit cell dimensions of Figure 3.3a, the c/a ratio should be 1.633; however, for some HCP metals this ratio deviates from the ideal value.