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Hi all - there's currently an edit request open at Template talk:Infobox gold to add the lattice constant. It seems like a reasonable request to me (although it looks like I would first have to add it to Template:Infobox element, which is fine), but I thought I would ask people with more subject knowledge here first to see if this is a reasonable addition before adjusting that template. Thanks! LittlePuppers (talk) 04:36, 21 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@LittlePuppers: Yes, good idea to add the lattice constant to the infobox as a crystal structure comment. Looks like only carbon iron and lead have them now, and I'd be glad to add them to a bunch of elements. This looks like a good source:

King, H. W. (1981). "Crystal structures of the elements at 25°C". Bulletin of Alloy Phase Diagrams. 2: 401–402.

ISSN 0197-0216

.

It gives a = 407.84 pm at 25 °C for gold. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 09:02, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Count me in as supporting this idea too (to add it for all elements). :) Double sharp (talk) 11:34, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Double sharp!

Can you access that ref above (unfortunately not open-access). I like it because it gives the original sources it draws from, and states everything for the same temperature 25 °C. Can recommend other sources instead or in addition? Most content of the infoboxes is not sourced now, so what's your take on whether to reference everything new added there? Seems like enough to leave sources out of the infoboxes but add the constants, with sources, also to lattice constant#List_of_lattice_constants. Eventually let's separate elements from the compounds as separate lists there. Thoughts? –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 20:48, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(NB: that ref has an erratum for rhodium.)

Lattice constant has a handful of refs (#7-15), but none of those appear to cover more than a dozen or so elements. LittlePuppers (talk) 22:28, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MadeOfAtoms: I have access to that one. :) In general, when one source works for all (or almost all) the elements, we start a data page to collect the sources e.g. Critical points of the elements (data page).

WebElements also gives sources for its lattice constants, e.g. Ga for example. Double sharp (talk) 04:16, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds good to make such a data page and I'm glad to help. I'll follow your lead, or just start an element table in lattice constant for now, which can become a data page later. Do you have a preference for the source to use: the ref above, or the WebElements site, or a variety as needed? WebElements doesn't seem to give the temperature, and neither gives more than one allotrope. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 05:01, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Whatever we decide, I'd favour consistency. So the ref above is fine with me. I guess we should make an exception for Cf, which is given by WebElements but not your ref. Double sharp (talk) 18:25, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed that it should be as consistent as reasonably possible and try to stick with a main source, then a couple backup sources to fill in the holes.

This book seems ideal except that one of us would have to shell out $300 or find it in a library:

Arblaster, John W. (2018-03-01). Selected Values of the Crystallographic Properties of Elements. Materials Park, Ohio: ASM International.

ISBN 1-62708-155-0

.

It's recent, thorough, sourced, gives a preferred value, temperatures, and covers different allotropes. Google books lets us see about a fifth of it: [1]

–MadeOfAtoms (talk) 00:50, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MadeOfAtoms: I have a copy. All elements from H to Lr are included (though for At, Fr, Fm, Md, No, and Lr they are predictions). Note that it uses Pearson symbols. :) Double sharp (talk) 18:00, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Double sharp: Excellent! What do you think:

• Do you think this is the best choice as the main source for lattice constants in the elements, data page, and Lattice constant page?
• And are you willing to take on the Lion's share of transcribing the data into WP? If you put it in one place then I will help place it in the others. Otherwise I will cringe and then consider buying a copy.
• Using 20 °C as the reference temperature as in this book.
• Adding a Pearson symbol parameter to the Infobox element template. Pearson symbol seems to be the modern standard way, eclipsing the Strukturbericht designation.
• Possibly updating the thermal expansion coefficients using this source.

–MadeOfAtoms (talk) 20:16, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MadeOfAtoms: I would consider it a good and comprehensive recent source, so count me in as supporting its use. I'll start by transcribing the summary of crystallographic properties (including lattice constants) in Appendix B. Double sharp (talk) 07:01, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MadeOfAtoms: I've collected the data from that appendix in User:Double sharp/Crystallographic properties of the elements. The main text has data at other conditions too. I added a few other allotropes of interest that are in the main text but were for some reason excluded from the appendix: C₆₀, C₇₀, and α-monoclinic Se. Double sharp (talk) 08:32, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent! I will start updating the element infoboxes with lattice constants and densities, and this reference. For example see carbon. While we're at it, what do you think of including the Pearson symbol as a new infobox parameter and display it as "Pearson symbol: hP4" or maybe just "(hP4)" as another line in the "Crystal structure" field? Useful, or just distracting for most readers? –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 09:33, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MadeOfAtoms: Why not add it? It's pretty short. :) Double sharp (talk) 09:51, 29 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I looked briefly but couldn't find any that did right now. Looking at how lead does it, it appears to set |crystal structure comment=''a''=495.08 pm. I assume it would be easier if this was set to something like |lattice constant=, but a couple quick questions:

• Is this the best format to display it (next to the diagram), or would it be clearer to display as a line below, something like "lattice constant: 495.08 pm"? (This has the benefit of providing a link for people like me who don't have a lot of background knowledge.)
• If so, should it, still specify "a ="? (From a glance over the lattice constant article, it appears that a is just one of (or the most common of) a few measures of lattices, so maybe?
• Should units be supplied by the template (i.e. automatically append pm or Å or something), or be provided individually for each infobox? Or have a default only if nothing is specified? (And if so, what should that be?)

Thanks again to all of you for subject knowledge. LittlePuppers (talk) 22:20, 23 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@LittlePuppers and Double sharp: Initially I also thought we should add a parameter "lattice constant" to the Infobox element template. But the info varies in several ways so we would need a bunch of parameters and cases: many elements have several lattice constants, and some like carbon have different allotropes to specify. I think it works just fine to put the information into the "crystal structure comment" parameter so it appears near each allotrope's little structure image, which nicely illustrates the meaning of a, b, etc as needed. I think it's okay to just add the labels and units and temperatures ourselves in the comment text, which allows notes and links customized as appropriate to each element. For example, for Hg it could show "a = 300.5 pm; α = 70.53° (at 225 K)". My only regret would be that the "lattice constant" as a link and searchable phrase are absent. Opinions?

While we're at it, it would help to add a more specific crystal structure designation in each case. (It could ride along on the "crystal structure comment" parameter, in the simplest implementation.) The Strukturbericht designation is good because we can pipe it to the specification in that article, which is nice and complete, such as A3' for La. (The Pearson symbol is another widely used option but it doesn't seem as helpful.) –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 04:49, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, would it be of any use to just have the a link to lattice constant? Theoretically that'd be better than nothing.

Looking at how this is implemented, it seems like it might be possible to have Lattice constant: a= appear still to the left of the diagram, rather than below (i.e. how iron and lead appear now, but with a the text and a link to "lattice constant" below "crystal structure" and to the left of "a=". Again, I'll leave it to you guys as to the best way to present this, though; I'm just throwing possibilities out there. LittlePuppers (talk) 05:21, 24 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks @LittlePuppers and Double sharp: for all the ideas and brainstorming. Let's go with the simple and compact link form a =  in the "crystal structure comment", and use King (1981) as the source for the main allotrope unless you prefer a different form. See gold for example to see if you like it (please pardon me LittlePuppers if I just stepped on your toes there). –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 08:41, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, that's perfectly fine. LittlePuppers (talk) 14:22, 25 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Adding the explicit "Lattice constant:" to the left of the little diagram as LittlePuppers suggested fits nicely. Check out e.g. copper and carbon. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 10:20, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MadeOfAtoms: I was thinking something more like this, I think how you have it works as well, though. LittlePuppers (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@LittlePuppers: I'm fine with how it is now on gold, but I like your proposed layout better. There are two ways to do it: as one or as two Infobox label/data pairs. Doing it with one is easy: conditionally add a line "Lattice constant" to the label so it looks similar to a new label. But the vertical spacing is not quite the same as for "real" labels. Or do it with two label/data pairs: "Lattice constant" becomes its own label and we move the small image out from "Crystal structure" and into this field. The second option seems more "correct" as it gets the vertical spacing correct and gets the template data labeled clearly, but requires a bit more template hacking to keep the little crystal image in a good place given that only some elements have a Lattice constant field so far. I have just enough template skill to try implementing it, or feel free to go for it. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 04:32, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I mocked it up by linking both in one label (and noticed that the spacing was weird), but having two and putting the diagram next to the second makes more sense. I was thinking that would push the diagram down, but now that I actually look at it I realize that the name of the structure (e.g. "face-centered cubic") takes up enough room that the diagram is already down there. I'll play around with how to implement it. LittlePuppers (talk) 08:18, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Alright, I did this (see Template:Infobox lead), just a couple notes:

• Everything should stay exactly as it is, until you move it to the |lattice constant= parameter.
• "Lattice constant" vs "lattice constants"? I went with the singular, but feel free to switch it (or should it vary depending on the template?)
• I'm pretty sure this should play nicely with with |crystal structure prefix=, |crystal structure comment=, and having two crystal structures (use |lattice constant 2=), but it's probably worth double checking that everything looks right in articles with those to make sure I didn't screw something up.
• I'm currently prepending ''a'' = , but feel free to take that out.

I'm going to bed soon, feel free to revert my edits if they break things. LittlePuppers (talk) 08:44, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good and I'll try it out tomorrow.

I also pondered (without a clear opinion) whether to have both a lattice constant and a lattice constants= parameter, or instead to add lattice constant suffix parameters that we set to "s" as needed. Your thought?

I guess we'll want to take out the ''a'' =  because half the elements have various other constants. The only other option I can think of is to have many cases in a switch on yet another parameter (like the number of lattice constants) or a big {{#switch{{{crystal structure}}}...}}, which all seems unnecessary as it's easy enough and more transparent for future editors to format them all ourselves. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 09:26, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think either of those could work to make plurals. Having lattice constant and lattice constants is probably easier for each element's infobox, whereas just having something for the suffix is easier in {{infobox element}}. Neither of them seem to make it particularly obvious how this works, but realistically these will probably all be put in by a handful of people and then rarely touched again.

My thought with a= is that it seems like even elements with multiple constants have that and the others can get tacked on to the end; but it may be easier to be consistent and have to format all of them, instead of all but one. Feel free to take it out. LittlePuppers (talk) 09:37, 27 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Your edit to {{Infobox element}} works beautifully, and I added also the "lattice constants" parameter, and moved the little image up a bit. Took out the formatting on the "lattice constant" value, but I could go either way – just thought it might be confusing to format that one but not the plural version. Check it out at carbon to see what you think. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 02:53, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That looks great. LittlePuppers (talk) 03:10, 28 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A few points that occurred to me based on the data:

• For elements that are not solid at 293.15 K, we should list the conditions explicitly.
• For H and He, it is rather isotopes that we should show separately, rather than allotropes. (I mean, if you get to enough precision, then this is an issue for nearly every element: isotopically pure ²⁰⁸Pb will surely have a different density from isotopically pure ²⁰⁴Pb. But for H and He the differences are the most serious, since they are so light. Side question: has anyone ever found or calculated crystallographic data for tritium?)

Double sharp (talk) 10:05, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Looks like your table at User:Double sharp/Crystallographic properties of the elements has these conditions carefully specified and ready to go. It can go into the infobox as is, but I suggest making it more compact e.g. by specifying in an {{efn}} that n-H2 is "normal hydrogen (protium), 75% o-H2 25% p-H2".

Also, the element infobox templates now take the "crystal lattice Pearson symbol" parameter(s) so we can update that, the density, and the lattice constants all in one go, and share the reference, as done in carbon.

You stumped me on the cryatallography of tritium. I suppose it's hard to keep cold and well-ordered so it's rarely studied.–MadeOfAtoms (talk) 10:34, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find data for tritium indeed. Since we both can't find any data, I guess it probably has not been studied. I was hoping because even francium had estimated/predicted data, but oh well. :) Double sharp (talk) 14:23, 31 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. It should also be clarified that the densities are for 20°C. (They change a bit with temperature.) Double sharp (talk) 17:32, 2 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Double sharp thanks again for the great lattice data table. I'm gradually adding the info to the element infoboxes starting arbitrarily at K. I agree that the temperature (or "at the triple point") should be given clearly for density and other parameters where it matters.

Would you please consider adding a column of thermal expansion coefficients at 20 °C also available in Arblaster (2018)? It would make a nice set of relate crystallographic info and would allow us to add this up-to-date thermal info to the element infoboxes. I hope you'll want to transclude this table into lattice constant and others. A complication for some crystals is the highly anisotropic thermal expansion (most commonly for hcp) so there's a coefficient for each axis as given in Arblaster. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 00:34, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, when time permits. I'll ping you when I've done it. :)

Yes, transclusion into lattice constant makes perfect sense. Double sharp (talk) 08:33, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@MadeOfAtoms: I did a first pass on putting them in User:Double sharp/Crystallographic properties of the elements. Unlike the other data, this one is scattered across many pages, so hopefully I avoided making mistakes. Double sharp (talk) 09:13, 5 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Recently, there was a mass deletion that deletes a lot of templates that only used in one article. I'm not sure do templates like {{Infobox hydrogen}} can also be deleted for the same reason, as they are all only used in one article. Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 03:44, 26 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Those deletions each had time for discussion. If a merge into the article is proposed, then we can point out that they are useful for keeping the element article wikitext tractable, so I thinks it's no problem. –MadeOfAtoms (talk) 01:07, 4 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

An IP user has been adding unsourced lines like

• "It is the 45th most abundant element on earth."

to many elements. Is there a reliable reference online for these values? Johnjbarton (talk) 22:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That reference is probably the WebElements column in the article abundance of elements in Earth's crust. Various sources have different rankings, and I’m not sure is CRC a better reference for this. Nucleus hydro elemon (talk) 22:43, 20 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! However, the WebElements.com site does give the relative abundance and therefore can't be used as source. The table in

WP:CIRCULAR). Johnjbarton (talk) 15:24, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply

]

Please weigh in on my proposal on Talk:Abundance of elements in Earth's crust to split the table on that page. Johnjbarton (talk) 16:02, 21 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A new paper has announced the discovery of 15 new neutron-rich isotopes of elements copper through krypton and with mass numbers from 84 to 103.

• Shimizu, Y.; Kubo, T.; Sumikama, T.; Fukuda, N.; Takeda, H.; Suzuki, H.; Ahn, D. S.; Inabe, N.; Kusaka, K.; Ohtake, M.; Yanagisawa, Y.; Yoshida, K.; Ichikawa, Y.; Isobe, T.; Otsu, H.; Sato, H.; Sonoda, T.; Murai, D.; Iwasa, N.; Imai, N.; Hirayama, Y.; Jeong, S. C.; Kimura, S.; Miyatake, H.; Mukai, M.; Kim, D. G.; Kim, E.; Yagi, A. (8 April 2024). "Production of new neutron-rich isotopes near the N = 60 isotones Ge 92 and As 93 by in-flight fission of a 345 MeV/nucleon U 238 beam". Physical Review C. 109 (4).
  doi:10.1103/PhysRevC.109.044313
  .

The new nuclides are ⁸⁴Cu, ^86–87Zn, ^88–89Ga, ^91–92Ge, ^93–95As, ^96–97Se, ^99–100Br, and ¹⁰³Kr. I cannot access the paper beyond the abstract and figures in order to get any nontrivial information that is not extrapolated in NUBASE2020 + AME2020 II, such as a lower bound on the half-life of the new nuclides.

Also, some of the isotope lists affected by this update are extremely out of date; Isotopes of copper, for example, did not include ^81–83Cu until I fully updated the list to NUBASE2020 + AME2020 II, which is why I took the effort to update this one thoroughly. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 22:39, 15 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@LaundryPizza03: I had seen this paper, though I've been too busy the past few days to update the isotopes pages – thanks for doing so. There isn't any mass or decay data in the article, though if you'd like a PDF copy I can email you. ^Complex/_Rational 02:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No thanks. In that case, I can just fill in NUBASE2020 estimates where appropriate. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 03:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]