Graphite

The most stable form of carbon is graphite. Graphite consists of sheets of carbon atoms covalently bonded together. These sheets are then stacked to form graphite. Figure 1.1 shows a ball-and-stick representation of graphite with sheets that extended "indefinitely" in the xy plane, but the structure has been truncated for display purposed. Graphite may also be regarded as a network solid, even though there is no bonding in the z direction. Each layer, however, is an "endless" bonded network of carbon atoms.

Figure 1.1 : Animation of a rotating graphite structure. This is a stereogram and can be viewed in 3D if a viewer's eyes are crossed slightly to overlap the two panels