SILICON

Semiconductor: Silicon

Semiconductor: Silicon

Introduction

A semiconductor is an element that behaves as a conductor or insulator depending on various factors, such as electric or magnetic field, pressure, radiation affects you, or the temperature of the environment in which you are. The electrical conductivity of semiconductors is strongly temperature dependent. Near the absolute zero temperature semiconductors are insulators. At room temperature, they are depending on the distance from material-specific management - and valence conductive or nonconductive. The electrical conductivity of semiconductors increases with increasing temperature, so they belong to the thermistors. Furthermore, the conductivity can be through the introduction of foreign atoms (doping) from another major chemical group in a wide range influenced. The most widely used semiconductor element is silicon.

Discussion

Silicon is a nonmetallic chemical element group 14 located in the periodic table of elements forming part of the family of carbonoideos. It is the second most abundant element in Earth's crust (27.7 wt %) after oxygen. It occurs in amorphous and crystallized: the first is a brownish powder, more active than crystalline variant, which occurs in blue-gray octahedra and metallic luster. Numerous research has been done regarding silicon which has been an important contribution to the broad topic i.e. semiconductors.

Following are three article reviews of the scientific research done on silicon.

Trends in Global Solar Photovoltaic Research: Silicon Versus Non-Silicon Materials

The author Sinha, made a comparative analysis solar photovoltaic (PV) thrust research from 1981 to 1988 and from 2001 to 2008. The research says that the USA leads all the countries in terms of absolute number of publications as is the case in other areas of basic sciences. However, its relative activity in solar PV research in terms of transformative activity index (TAI) values has decreased from 1.8 in 1981-1988 to 0.9 in 2001-2008. The performance of National Renewable Energy Laboratory of USA, the top institute is similar to its national trend, i.e. increase in absolute number and decrease in TAI. Presence of 3 German institutes in the top 10 institutes is an indication of Germany's emphasis as well as the leadership in global solar PV research. The share of silicon-based papers as a percentage of total solar PV publication has decreased from around 36% in 1981-1988 to 34% in 2001-2008. The share of non-silicon based publication has increased from 9% in 1981-1988 to 17% in 2001-2008. Within silicon, the emphasis is still on crystalline silicon while among non-silicon materials, the growth of dye-sensitized ...