Melting silicon ‘in reverse’ can help purify it, result in cheaper electronics
2nd August 2010
MIT scientists have found that silicon — when combined in the right dosage with other metals — can actually be made to melt by reducing its temperature. Typically, you’d require 1,414 degrees of Celsius heat to liquidize solid silicon, but the intermixed variant discussed here need only reach 900 degrees before its slow cooling process starts turning it gooey. The great advantage to this discovery is that because the impurities tend to separate off into the liquid part, there’s now a practicable way to filter them out, meaning that things like solar cells won’t require the same high grade of silicon purity for their construction — which in turn might lead to us being able to afford them one day.
August 2nd, 2010 at 11:13
This is ‘new’? So that means solder is new, because it also melts at a lower temperature?
It’s good to know that nobody checks scientific publications anymore, putting them on the same footing with political speeches.
I once came across an article on a ‘new’ way to determine the molecular weight of a polymer. It struck me as odd because I had to do that same procedure as part of a PChem lab. At that time, I looked up some info on it in the library and found the original experiments were done in 1907.
The author of the article on silicon did reference solar power, but not AIDS, global warming, or Marxism. How do you expect to keep your funding up without tying into the right crises!?