Topic summary
Antifluorite
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Fluorite structure.
Many compounds with formula M2X have an antifluorite structure. In these the locations of the anions and cations are reversed relative to fluorite (an anti-structure); the anions occupy the FCC regular sites whereas the cations occupy the tetrahedral interstitial sites. For example, magnesium silicide, Mg2Si, has a lattice parameter of 6.338 Å with magnesium cations occupying the tetrahedral interstitial sites, in which each silicide anion is surrounded by eight magnesium cations and each magnesium cation is surrounded by four silicide anions in a tetrahedral fashion.