The reciprocal lattice as the Fourier transform of the direct lattice

We argue that introducing the reciprocal lattice as the Fourier transform of the Bravais lattice provides not only a concise definition for the reciprocal lattice, but also makes it a concept easy to grasp. To illustrate the power of the concept we derive the reciprocal lattices of the bcc and fee structures directly from their conventional unit cells, rather than from the primitive unit cells. © 1996 American Association of Physics Teachers.