We say that tetrahedral voids are called so because a tetrahedron is formed when the centres of four spheres are joined.
Then shouldn't we call the voids surrounded by SIX spheres as HEXAHEDRAL voids?!

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Solution

The voids are named on the basis of the resultant structure of the void and not on the basis of the number of sphere is contact. Therefore the type of void formed as a result of six closely packed sphere is octahedral in nature as the void is an octahedron.

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Similar questions

Q. Assertion :A tetrahedral void is surrounded by four spheres and an octahedral void is surrounded by six spheres. Reason: The number of tetrahedral voids is double the number of close packed spheres and number of octahedral voids is equal to number of close packed spheres.

Q. Assertion: In hexagonal close packing, voids are between three touching spheres whose centres lie at the corners of an equilateral triangle.
Reason: In hexagonal close packing, voids are called square voids.

Q. Assertion :In hexagonal close packing, voids are in between the three touching spheres whose centres lie at the corners of an equilateral triangle. Reason: In hexagonal close packing, voids are called square voids.

Which of the following is not true about the voids formed in 3 dimensional hexagonal close packed structure ?

(a) A tetrehedral void is formed when a sphere of the second layer is present above triangular void in the first layer

(b) All the triangular voids are not covered by the spheres of the second layer

(c) Tetrahedral voids are formed when the triangular voids in the second layer lie above the triangular voids in the first layer and the triangulare shapes of these voids do not overlap

(d) Octahedral voids are formed when the triagular voids in th second layer exactly overlap with similar voids in the first layer

In an FCC unit cell, a cube is formed by joining the centres of all the tetrahedral voids to generate a new cube. Then the new cube would contain voids as:

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We say that tetrahedral voids are called so because a tetrahedron is formed when the centres of four spheres are joined.Then shouldn't we call the voids surrounded by SIX spheres as HEXAHEDRAL voids?!

The voids are named on the basis of the resultant structure of the void and not on the basis of the number of sphere is contact. Therefore the type of void formed as a result of six closely packed sphere is octahedral in nature as the void is an octahedron.

We say that tetrahedral voids are called so because a tetrahedron is formed when the centres of four spheres are joined.
Then shouldn't we call the voids surrounded by SIX spheres as HEXAHEDRAL voids?!