MATERIAL SCIENCE

Material Science

Material Science

3 essential properties of material

There are three essential properties of every material that scientists use as a premise for most every study. The first is the kind of atoms that the material is made up of. You have your neutral elements and your compound elements. The neutral elements have the same amount of protons and electrons, which basically cancel each other out leaving them neutral. The compound element deals with combining more than one element. The second is the way those atoms are arranged. A good example of this is by comparing atoms of liquid and atoms of solids. For instance the atoms of liquids move around freer than atoms of solids which are packed together (Kakani, 2004).

The third is the way the atoms are bonded together. There are for key properties to understand when studying a material. The strength of the material, which is its ability to withstand forces being applied to it without breaking, is the first. The second is the materials elasticity, which is its ability to flex while returning to its original form. The third is the materials plasticity, which is its ability to change its shape permanently.

Silicon-based semiconductors revolutionized computing

Not all semiconductors are suitable for use in computers. The material which has become the standard semiconductor for circuitry is silicon. Silicon is the most abundant element in the earth's crust, and is accessible from almost anywhere on earth. This makes silicon inexpensive, driving down the cost of computers and other technological devices. Some computers use other semiconductor materials to achieve faster electron conduction speeds. An example is germanium with a small concentration of arsenic impurities. While this material achieves faster conduction rates, its cost is significantly higher than silicon.

Semiconductor materials like silicon can only be used in computers if they demonstrate a ...