the.com/germanium
the metalloid that booted up the transistor age, then got fired by silicon
means A brittle, grayish-white metalloid element (symbol Ge, atomic number 32) that behaves as a semiconductor, used in early transistors and now in fiber optics and infrared optics.
from Named in the 1880s by the German chemist Clemens Winkler, who discovered the element and patriotically christened it after Germania, the Latin name for his homeland. Its existence had been predicted years earlier by Mendeleev, who left a gap in his periodic table for a missing element he called 'eka-silicon' — and germanium slotted neatly in, vindicating his vision. 'Germania' itself is the old Roman name for the lands east of the Rhine, of uncertain ultimate meaning.
- first transistor
- powered Bell Labs' 1947 device before silicon stole the job
- predicted blind
- Mendeleev called its existence years before discovery
- named patriotically
- Winkler dubbed it for Germany in 1886
- infrared eyes
- its lenses let night-vision and thermal cameras see heat
- fiber backbone
- doping it boosts the optical fibers carrying the internet
zone refining process — developed by william pfann in 1952 to purify germanium for transistors at bell labs
first transistor — germanium point-contact transistor invented by shockley, bardeen, and brattain at bell labs in 1947
tsumeb mine — historical germanium-rich copper mine in namibia that supplied germanium to the semiconductor industry