Monoclinic Bravais Lattices

mP	mC

The monoclinic lattice has an axis of order 2 imposed as a symmetry constraint forcing two of the unit cell angles to 90°. The most common convention, though not necessarily the most logical one(!), is to choose the symmetry axis to be parallel to the b direction so that α = γ = 90°. The 4 independent lattice parameters are a, b, c, and β.

The monoclinic lattice is either primitive or centred. By convention the C-face centre is chosen for the centred lattice since for A- and I-centring, it is always possible to choose an alternative unit cell that is C-face centred.

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