Silicon is a hard, brittle crystalline solid with a blue-grey metallic lustre, vital for semiconductors.
Core Principles & Analysis
Joens Jacob Berzelius isolated silicon in 1824 by reducing potassium fluorosilicate with potassium metal.
It is the second most abundant element in Earth's crust after oxygen and a semiconductor whose conductivity can be precisely tuned by doping with trace impurities.
Ultrapure silicon wafers are the foundation of computer chips and solar cells, while its compounds appear in glass, quartz, and silicone polymers.