Early Career
Seitz moved to Princeton University to study metals under Eugene Wigner, gaining his PhD in 1934. He and Wigner pioneered one of the first quantum theories of crystals, and developed concepts in solid-state physics such as the Wigner–Seitz unit cell.
The Wigner-Seitz unit cell is a geometrical construction used in the study of crystalline material in solid-state physics. It is specific to crystals because the unique property of a crystal is that its atoms are arranged in a regular 3-dimensional array called a lattice. All the properties attributed to crystalline materials stem from this highly ordered structure. Such a structure exhibits discrete translational symmetry. In order to model and study such a periodic system, one needs a mathematical "handle" to describe the symmetry and hence draw conclusions about the material properties consequent to this symmetry. The Wigner–Seitz cell is a means to achieve this.
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