Weblink 9.3 The structures of solid GaAs and AlN

Gallium arsenide, GaAs, adopts the zinc blende structure. The atoms are coloured grey for gallium and orange for arsenic. The green cube shows the zinc blende unit cell.

Aluminium nitride adopts the wurtzite structure.  The atoms are coloured blue for nitrogen and grey for aluminium.

Both structures consist of networks of six-membered rings and show similarities to the structure of diamond.

• Click and drag to rotate the structure; hold down shift, then click and drag to zoom.
• Use the drop-down menu to select GaAs or AlN.