Silicon

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• Perovskites, a ‘dirt cheap’ alternative to silicon, just got a lot more efficient
  

  Silicon, the standard semiconducting material used in a host of applications—computer central processing units (CPUs), semiconductor chips, detectors, and solar cells—is an abundant, naturally occurring material. However, it is expensive to mine and to purify. Perovskites—a family of materials nickn more

• Nanoparticles drill holes at will in silicon
  

  A Hamburg-based research team has developed a new method for producing a network of large to very fine pores in silicon and glass. At DESY’s X-ray source PETRA III, scientists led by DESY researchers Stella Gries and Patrick Huber were able to analyse the porosity using X-ray tomography. The method more

• Novel preparation of next-generation anode delivers boost to lithium-ion batteries
  

  The hunt for the next generation of materials for anodes in lithium-ion batteries has long suffered from a series of parasitic chemical reactions for many of the proposed replacements for the graphite that is conventionally used. A novel preparation technique for a silicon-monoxide-carbon composite more

Infographics Silicon

Group 4 Elements

This latest infographic focuses on the Group 4 (Group 14 in IUPAC nomenclature) elements. One extra fact to add for the curious: although tin has the greatest number of stable isotopes, Xenon trumps it comprehensively if unstable isotopes are also included in the count, with well over 30 possible is more

The Chemistry of Silly Putty

Silly putty (or science putty, as it’s sometimes referred to) is an odd material. Stretch it slowly and it happily deforms, and can be molded very easily. However, pull it apart with enough force and it’ll snap clean in two. It flows imperceptibly slowly, as if it were a thick liquid, but when rolle more

The Chemical Elements of a Smartphone

There are an isolated few graphics online that look at elements involved in the manufacture of a smartphone – for example, this ‘Periodic Table of iPhones’ – but there’s actually remarkably little easily accessible information out there that details the specific compounds used for specific purposes more