I study engineering and when learning about all types of electronics, I always hear about silicon being used. What’s so special about it?
Additionally, I just read about a new particle accelerator which is the size of a penny, which also uses a silicon channel to accelerate the particle. What’s so special about silicon?
Thanks in advance
In: Physics
Most importantly silicon is a “semi-conductor.” This means, when properly engineered, it can selectively allow electricity to flow through it. This makes silicon semiconductors act kind like an on/off switch, which is the basis of modern programming and computing. There are other semiconductors available, but silicon is just about everywhere and thus quite inexpensive and accessible.
Silicon is a semicoductor, that mean it electric conductivity can be change but doping it. Doping is introducing imputires of other element in the crystal structure. By doing that you cam mans electrical components like transistor where one electric signal can control the flow of another.
Silicon is not the only semiconductor, the first transistor was made with germanium and it was for a long time dominant.
Diffrent material have different advtages and disadvantages.
Silicon has the advantage is is very common, the second most common element in earths crust. It do not degrade a lot with high temperature, can handle a larger temperature range and higher voltages the germanium
The disadvantage is the elecon mobility is lower so slower component and smaller frequency range. It alos user more power excecially from the constant current leakage.
The result is Silicon good enough performance, lower cost and better temperature handling make it the most common option. Because it has been used a lager production and technological knowalge is build up around it.
There are other material use to like gallium arsenide use for hight power application. The semiconductor in LEDs determine the color of light it emmit and silicon emmit infrared light. So other semiconductor material are used.
Diamond has been proposed as a very good future semiconductor. It is very good at transporting heat away, a major problem in integrated circuits. It can alos handle a even larger temperature range. The problem is making large waffers to make integrated circuits on is very had.
You can compare it to iron that is not always the best metal from a technical standpoint. But is is common on earth so it is cheap and were have learned to use int in may way. But in some application were need to use something else.
Its main advantage is that it has an amazing oxide, Si02. Incredible easy to grow on Si itself, has no lattice with Si itself, same temperature coefficient, incredibly well behaved and very easy to grow very uniformly. It’s just so amazing that it makes it very easy to make highly reliable transistors.
1. It is a semiconductor. This property means that the resistance (how much electricity can flow) can be changed based on factors like the direction of current flow (in diodes) and how voltage is applied to it (in transistors)
2. It is a common element, quartz sand is mostly silicon dioxide, with lots of specialist equipment and prossessing we can make extremely pure crystals of silicon [like this](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-m&sca_esv=47bbd2a2bf8cf0cc&biw=360&bih=667&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=pure+silicon+crystal+for+chip+manufacturing+&oq=pure+silicon+crystal+for+chip+manufacturing+&aqs=mobile-gws-lite..#imgrc=N9s2dX_wiG73MM) that can be used in microprocessors. There are other elements, such as germanium, that have similar electrical properties, but these are rarer and therefore more expensive than silicon.
All solid materials have crystal structures internally. Depending on the shape of those structures, electrons can move through them at different rates. This is why only a few metals are good conductors and basically everything else has the wrong crystal structures to allow electrons to pass through.
Silicon is a “semi-conductor”, which means it’s relatively easy to make silicon from crystal structures that will either allow electrons to pass really easily or not want to pass through at all. The electrical conductivity of a semi-conductor can also be affected by external factors after it has been manufactured. Silicon is not magnetic, has much lower thermal conductive and much less reactive than many of the natural conductors. It is also extremely common.
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