Crossword clues for germanium
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Ekasilicon \Ek`a*sil"i*con\, n. [Skr. [=e]ka one + E. silicon.] (Chem.) The name of a hypothetical element predicted and afterwards discovered and named germanium; -- so called because it was a missing analogue of the silicon group. See Germanium, and cf. Ekabor.
Wiktionary
n. 1 A nonmetallic chemical element (''symbol'' Ge) with an atomic number of 32. 2 (cx countable English) An atom of this element.
WordNet
n. a brittle gray crystalline element that is a semiconducting metalloid (resembling silicon) used in transistors; occurs in germanite and argyrodite [syn: Ge, atomic number 32]
Wikipedia
Germanium is a chemical element with symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard, grayish-white metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbors tin and silicon. Pure germanium is a semiconductor with an appearance similar to elemental silicon. Like silicon, germanium naturally reacts and forms complexes with oxygen in nature. Unlike silicon, it is too reactive to be found naturally on Earth in the free (elemental) state.
Because it seldom appears in high concentration, germanium was discovered comparatively late in the history of chemistry. Germanium ranks near fiftieth in relative abundance of the elements in the Earth's crust. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted its existence and some of its properties from its position on his periodic table, and called the element ekasilicon. Nearly two decades later, in 1886, Clemens Winkler found the new element along with silver and sulfur, in a rare mineral called argyrodite. Although the new element somewhat resembled arsenic and antimony in appearance, the combining ratios in compounds agreed with Mendeleev's predictions for a relative of silicon. Winkler named the element after his country, Germany. Today, germanium is mined primarily from sphalerite (the primary ore of zinc), though germanium is also recovered commercially from silver, lead, and copper ores.
Germanium "metal" (isolated germanium) is used as a semiconductor in transistors and various other electronic devices. Historically, the first decade of semiconductor electronics was based entirely on germanium. Today, the amount of germanium produced for semiconductor electronics is one fiftieth the amount of ultra-high purity silicon produced for the same. Presently, the major end uses are fibre-optic systems, infrared optics, solar cell applications, and light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Germanium compounds are also used for polymerization catalysts and have most recently found use in the production of nanowires. This element forms a large number of organometallic compounds, such as tetraethylgermane, useful in organometallic chemistry.
Germanium is not thought to be an essential element for any living organism. Some complex organic germanium compounds are being investigated as possible pharmaceuticals, though none have yet proven successful. Similar to silicon and aluminum, natural germanium compounds tend to be insoluble in water and thus have little oral toxicity. However, synthetic soluble germanium salts are nephrotoxic, and synthetic chemically reactive germanium compounds with halogens and hydrogen are irritants and toxins.
Usage examples of "germanium".
The subsequent discoveries of gallium, scandium, and germanium bore out his predictions.
Implanted in the pale amber skull from just above the crimson-irised eyes was a neural net of germanium and tertium wafers floating in a semiorganic material.
The artfully constructed latticework of tertium and germanium circuits at the crown of his head was perfectly intact.
Carbon is a nonmetal but has the same cubic crystal structure as its nearest neighbors in Group IV, silicon, germanium, and gray tin.
Besides that, the ore also contained other valuable metals like cobalt and the platinum-group metals, as well as nonmetals like sulfur, arsenic, selenium, germanium, phosphorus, carbon.
Fabr-Suithe could hold them off for a long time, but it was clearly time for the bindlestiff to leave—time for it to make off with its women and its anti-agapics and its germanium, time for it to lose itself in the Rift before the Earth police could invest all of He.
The native American wild germanium or crane's-bill belongs to Oh, come on now!
You took any piece, crushed it, gasified it, ionized it, put it through the electromagnetic isotope separator, and drew forth as much (or, rather, as minutely little) germanium as any other piece would have given you.
Assuming that the spell works, though, we can play Mendeleev and predict the properties of eka-lead by extrapolating from those in the 'lead' series in the periodic table (carbon, silicon, germanium, tin, lead).
The rise of the metal germanium as the jinn of solid-state physics.
That same morning, as all the experts and high officials of the secret police shook their heads, bleary-eyed after a sleepless night, the constructors asked for quartz, vanadium, steel, copper, platinum, rhinestones, dysprosium, yttrium and thulium, also cerium and germanium, and most of the other elements that make up the Universe, plus a variety of machines and qualified technicians, not to mention a wide as sortment of spies--for so insolent had the constructors become, that on the triplicate requisition form they boldly wrote: "Also, kindly send agents of various cuts and stripes at the discretion and with the approval of the Proper Authorities.
Half the lattice is gone: there, the germanium was simply whiffed away.