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Re: A certain lack of knowledge

"But of course you are familiar with all of this."

Even though it's been 40 years since I studied it and a few decades since I worked in related industries...yes I am.

Silicon is considered a "semiconductor" which is a transition element between metals and non metals. It's in the same group as carbon and germanium. It has a higher melting point than most metals. Not all non metals are gases at normal temperature and pressure. Among them are Arsenic and Phosphorous which are commonly used as N type dopants as well as sulfur which isn't.

It is ususally possible to purify elements to a very high degree. That has nothing to do with their crystaline structure...if they can have such a structure. Some like carbon can have more than one such as diamond and graphite as well as an amorphous structure. Just because a material including metals are pure and can exist in crystaline structures, that doesn't mean they form monolithic large monolithic sturctures all or most of the time. That is usually possible only under very special conditions. Many, even most don't. Most crystals are of limited size with grain boundaries between them. This is easily studied at a beginner's level in a bubble chamber, a dish of soap bubbles demonstrating jogs and other discontinuities between grain boundaries. Just because a material forms a high purity ingot doesn't mean it is necessarily or even likely a monlithic crystal. I suggest you vist a steel plant if you can find one and watch iron and steel ingots being stripped out of their molds. They are high purity having just come from a blast furnace, an open hearth, or basic oxygen furnace but are never monolithic crystals, in fact far from it. Silicon is first purified and is only then grown into single crystal ingots. The dopant impurities are not introduced until much later after they are sliced into wafers, repeatedly spin coated with photoresist, and exposed to ultraviolet light in a mask aligner to expose areas which will receive the subsequent dopant. Only then are they ready for impurity dopants to be driven into the crystal lattices, usually at high temperatures. I've worked in both the steelmaking and semiconductor industries.

That's your free lesson in material science from me. If you want more, you'll have to stand in line to register behind John Curl and as with him, tuition will be required to be paid in full in advance.


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