Zirconium nitrate of chemical suppliers. It is used as a source of zirconium for other salts, as an analytical standard, or as a preservative. Zirconium nitrate and nitronium pentanitratozirconate can be used as chemical vapour deposition precursors as they are volatile, and decompose above 100 °C to form zirconia. At 95°C zirconium nitrate sublimes with a pressure of 0.2 mm of Hg and can be deposited as zirconium dioxide on silicon at 285°C. It has the advantage in that it is a single source, meaning it does not have to be mixed with other materials like oxygen, and decomposes at a relatively
Synthetic element Synthetic element In chemistry, a synthetic element is a chemical element that does not occur naturally on Earth, and can only be created artificially. So far, 24 synthetic elements have been created (those with atomic numbers 95–118). All are unstable, decaying with half-lives ranging from 15.6 million years to a few hundred microseconds. Seven other elements were first created artificially and thus considered synthetic, but later discovered to exist naturally (in trace quantities) as well; among them plutonium—first synthesized in 1940—the one best known to laypeople, because of its use in atomic bombs and nuclear reactors. Synthetic elements are radioactive