Post-transition metal traditionally used for tools.' In modern use, the term 'semimetal' sometimes refers, loosely or explicitly, to metals with incomplete metallic character in crystalline structure, electrical conductivity or electronic structure. Examples include gallium, ytterbium, bismuth, mercury and neptunium. Metalloids, which are in-between elements that are neither metals nor nonmetals, are also sometimes instead called semimetals. The elements commonly recognised as metalloids are boron, silicon, germanium, arsenic, antimony and tellurium. In old chemistry, before the publication in 1789 of Lavoisier's 'revolutionary' "Elementary Treatise on Chemistry", a semimetal was a metallic element with 'very imperfect ductility and malleability' such as zinc, mercury or
Silicon Hence pure silicon is an insulator at room temperature. However, doping silicon with a pnictogen such as phosphorus, arsenic, or antimony introduces one extra electron per dopant and these may then be excited into the conduction band either thermally or photolytically, creating an n-type semiconductor. Similarly, doping silicon with a group 13 element such as boron, aluminium, or gallium results in the introduction of acceptor levels that trap electrons that may be excited from the filled valence band, creating a p-type semiconductor. Joining n-type silicon to p-type silicon creates a p-n junction with a common Fermi level; electrons flow from