CrystalMaker ships with an extensive library of crystal and molecular structures. Many more phases are available online, both on this site, and via new, open-access databases.

Note that CrystalMaker also lets you create your own structures, by typing data directly into the program, via the Edit Structure command. This is useful if you have access to published data in print, and wish to display the data graphically.

With these resources, CrystalMaker users should be able to find many if not all of the structures they require, without recourse to commercial (or quasi-commercial) databases.

CrystalMaker Structures Libraries

The full version of CrystalMaker ships with extensive crystal structures libraries: ready-prepared and annotated in CrystalMaker binary format, for immediate display. If you opted not to install or copy the libraries initially, you can refer to your program CD-ROM to locate the data.

CrystalMaker's structures libraries contain over 600 phases, divided into various categories including: Basic Structure Types, Minerals, Organics and Other Inorganics.

Online CrystalMaker Libraries

We include well over 12,000 structures on this website - including silica polymorphs, sample protein structures, periodic tables of the elements (showing how atomic/ionic radii vary) - plus a wide range of alloys, intermetallics, pnictides and chalcogenides. Visit our library page for more information.

Mineralogical Society of America

The American Mineralogist Crystal Structure Database contains all of the structures published in the American Mineralogist, the Canadian Mineralogist and now the European Journal of Mineralogy. You can access these structures at http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/Crystal_Database.html.

Select one or more of the crystal structures and download them in CIF format (".cif"). Drop the CIF file onto the CrystalMaker application icon and the structure appears in the Graphics Window.

Crystallography Open Database

We would particularly like to recommend the Crystallography Open Database set up by Prof Armel Le Bail, but with widespread international support. The database contains over 48,000 entries, which can be freely downloaded in the ubiquitous CIF format.

Just drag-and-drop one or more CIF files onto the CrystalMaker application icon and the structures will be loaded automatically.