Silicon - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Silicon, 00Si
Silicon
Pronunciation
Allotropessee Allotropes of silicon
Appearancecrystalline, reflective with bluish-tinged faces
Standard atomic weight Ar°(Si)
[28.08428.086][1]
Silicon in the periodic table
Hydrogen Helium
Lithium Beryllium Boron Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen Fluorine Neon
Sodium Magnesium Aluminium Silicon Phosphorus Sulfur Chlorine Argon
Potassium Calcium Scandium Titanium Vanadium Chromium Manganese Iron Cobalt Nickel Copper Zinc Gallium Germanium Arsenic Selenium Bromine Krypton
Rubidium Strontium Yttrium Zirconium Niobium Molybdenum Technetium Ruthenium Rhodium Palladium Silver Cadmium Indium Tin Antimony Tellurium Iodine Xenon
Caesium Barium Lanthanum Cerium Praseodymium Neodymium Promethium Samarium Europium Gadolinium Terbium Dysprosium Holmium Erbium Thulium Ytterbium Lutetium Hafnium Tantalum Tungsten Rhenium Osmium Iridium Platinum Gold Mercury (element) Thallium Lead Bismuth Polonium Astatine Radon
Francium Radium Actinium Thorium Protactinium Uranium Neptunium Plutonium Americium Curium Berkelium Californium Einsteinium Fermium Mendelevium Nobelium Lawrencium Rutherfordium Dubnium Seaborgium Bohrium Hassium Meitnerium Darmstadtium Roentgenium Copernicium Nihonium Flerovium Moscovium Livermorium Tennessine Oganesson
C

Si

Ge
aluminiumsiliconphosphorus
Groupgroup 14 (carbon group)
Periodperiod 3
Block  p-block
Electron configuration[Ne] 3s2 3p2
Electrons per shell2, 8, 4
Physical properties
Phase at STPsolid
Melting point1687 K ​(1414 °C, ​2577 °F)
Boiling point3538 K ​(3265 °C, ​5909 °F)
Density (near r.t.)2.3290 g/cm3
when liquid (at m.p.)2.57 g/cm3
Heat of fusion50.21 kJ/mol
Heat of vaporization383 kJ/mol
Molar heat capacity19.789 J/(mol·K)
Vapor pressure
P (Pa) 1 10 100 1 k 10 k 100 k
at T (K) 1908 2102 2339 2636 3021 3537
Atomic properties
Oxidation states−4, −3, −2, −1, 0,[2] +1,[3] +2, +3, +4 (an amphoteric oxide)
ElectronegativityPauling scale: 1.90
Ionization energies
  • 1st: 786.5 kJ/mol
  • 2nd: 1577.1 kJ/mol
  • 3rd: 3231.6 kJ/mol
  • (more)
Atomic radiusempirical: 111 pm
Covalent radius111 pm
Van der Waals radius210 pm
Color lines in a spectral range
Spectral lines of silicon
Other properties
Natural occurrenceprimordial
Crystal structureface-centered diamond-cubic
Diamond cubic crystal structure for silicon
Speed of sound thin rod8433 m/s (at 20 °C)
Thermal expansion2.6 µm/(m⋅K) (at 25 °C)
Thermal conductivity149 W/(m⋅K)
Electrical resistivity2.3×103 Ω⋅m (at 20 °C)[4]
Band gap1.12 eV (at 300 K)
Magnetic orderingdiamagnetic[5]
Molar magnetic susceptibility−3.9·10−6 cm3/mol (298 K)[6]
Young's modulus130–188 GPa[7]
Shear modulus51–80 GPa[7]
Bulk modulus97.6 GPa[7]
Poisson ratio0.064–0.28[7]
Mohs hardness6.5
CAS Number7440-21-3
History
Namingafter Latin 'silex' or 'silicis', meaning flint
PredictionAntoine Lavoisier (1787)
Discovery and first isolationJöns Jacob Berzelius[8][9] (1823)
Named byThomas Thomson (1817)
Isotopes of silicon
Main isotopes[10] Decay
abun­dance half-life (t1/2) mode pro­duct
28Si 92.2% stable
29Si 4.7% stable
30Si 3.1% stable
31Si trace 2.62 h β 31P
32Si trace 153 y β 32P
 Category: Silicon
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Small grains of silicon because it has been crushed. This is not the silicon used in computers.
A thin cut of a large crystal of silicon that is very smooth. This is the type of silicon can be used in computers because it is very pure.

Silicon is a chemical element. Its atomic number is 14 on the periodic table. Its symbol is Si. It is a hard, brittle crystalline solid. It is a tetravalent metalloid and semiconductor. It is a member of group 14 in the periodic table.

Silicon looks like a metal, but cannot do everything that a metal can, like conduct electricity well. Silicon is used a lot in today's computers and nearly every other electronic device as well. Germanium can also be used in computers, but silicon is much easier to find.

For example, all of the sand found at the beach is made of small cubes of silicon dioxide also known as silica. Glass is made by heating sand hot enough until it melts.[11] Glass made from silicon can be made in different colours by adding colouring compounds. Many rocks and minerals are composed of compounds of silicon and oxygen called silicates.

Silicon in computers

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Silicon is a semiconductor, and much used in computers. A typical desktop computer contains several dozen integrated circuits made mostly of silicon. A super-pure isotope of silicon, silicon-28, can now be made 40 times more pure than before. It is very important for the next big development in computers. This stores "qubits" in atoms of another element, like phosphorous, embedded in a tiny layer of ultra-pure silicon-28. These qubits can simultaneously encode a one and a zero, for incredibly fast and complex calculations.[12]

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References

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  1. "Standard Atomic Weights: Silicon". CIAAW. 2009.
  2. "New Type of Zero-Valent Tin Compound". Chemistry Europe. 27 August 2016.
  3. Ram, R. S.; et al. (1998). "Fourier Transform Emission Spectroscopy of the A2D–X2P Transition of SiH and SiD" (PDF). J. Mol. Spectr. 190 (2): 341–352. doi:10.1006/jmsp.1998.7582. PMID 9668026.
  4. Eranna, Golla (2014). Crystal Growth and Evaluation of Silicon for VLSI and ULSI. CRC Press. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-4822-3281-3.
  5. Magnetic susceptibility of the elements and inorganic compounds, in Lide, D. R., ed. (2005). CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics (86th ed.). Boca Raton (FL): CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-0486-5.
  6. Weast, Robert (1984). CRC, Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. Boca Raton, Florida: Chemical Rubber Company Publishing. pp. E110. ISBN 0-8493-0464-4.
  7. 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Hopcroft, Matthew A.; Nix, William D.; Kenny, Thomas W. (2010). "What is the Young's Modulus of Silicon?". Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems. 19 (2): 229. doi:10.1109/JMEMS.2009.2039697.
  8. Weeks, Mary Elvira (1932). "The discovery of the elements: XII. Other elements isolated with the aid of potassium and sodium: beryllium, boron, silicon, and aluminum". Journal of Chemical Education. 9 (8): 1386–1412. Bibcode:1932JChEd...9.1386W. doi:10.1021/ed009p1386.
  9. Voronkov, M. G. (2007). "Silicon era". Russian Journal of Applied Chemistry. 80 (12): 2190. doi:10.1134/S1070427207120397.
  10. Kondev, F. G.; Wang, M.; Huang, W. J.; Naimi, S.; Audi, G. (2021). "The NUBASE2020 evaluation of nuclear properties" (PDF). Chinese Physics C. 45 (3): 030001. doi:10.1088/1674-1137/abddae.
  11. "Glass Crusher Machines". www.qcr.co.uk. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
  12. Webb, Jonathan 2014. Purer-than-pure silicon solves problem for quantum tech. BBC News Science & Environment [1]