4 ms·
How difficult is the purification process? Is it as difficult as uranium hexafloride gas? Yes, gas centrifuge appears to be a leading method. 'The purificatio
by chasil 2y ago
How difficult is the purification process? Is it as difficult as uranium hexafloride gas?
Yes, gas centrifuge appears to be a leading method.
'The purification starts with “simple” isotopic purification of silicon. The major breakthrough was converting this Si to silane (SiH4), which is then further refined to remove other impurities. The ultra-pure silane can then be fed into a standard epitaxy machine for deposition onto a 300-mm wafer.'
https://www.eejournal.com/article/silicon-purification-for-quantum-computing/ https://www.eejournal.com/article/silicon-purification-for-q...
- rbanffy 2y agoDoesn’t silane like catching fire when it sees an oxygen molecule? The other day I heard about it being used as rocket fuel for lunar ISRU applications. A rocket and a sandblaster at the same time.
- philipkglass 2y agoThis is no worse than before. All electronic grade silicon is already produced starting from silane or trichlorosilane, and both are about equally hazardous to handle. See this overview of producing purified silicon: "Chemistry of the Main Group Elements - 7.10: Semiconductor Grade Silicon" https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry/Chemistry_of_the_Main_Group_Elements_%28Barron%29/07%3A_Group_14/7.10%3A_Semiconductor_Grade_Silicon https://chem.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Inorganic_Chemistry/...
- rbanffy 2y agoThanks. I completely forgot how evil is semiconductor manufacturing.