Germanium Germanium Germanium is a chemical element with symbol Ge and atomic number 32. It is a lustrous, hard, grayish-white metalloid in the carbon group, chemically similar to its group neighbors tin and silicon. Pure germanium is a semiconductor with an appearance similar to elemental silicon. Like silicon, germanium naturally reacts and forms complexes with oxygen in nature. Because it seldom appears in high concentration, germanium was discovered comparatively late in the history of chemistry. Germanium ranks near fiftieth in relative abundance of the elements in the Earth's crust. In 1869, Dmitri Mendeleev predicted its existence and some of its properties
Silicon-germanium silicon-only technology. Silicon Germanium-on-insulator (SGOI) is a technology analogous to the Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) technology currently employed in computer chips. SGOI increases the speed of the transistors inside microchips by straining the crystal lattice under the MOS transistor gate, resulting in improved electron mobility and higher drive currents. SiGe MOSFETs can also provide lower junction leakage due to the lower band gap value of SiGe. However, a major issue with SGOI MOSFETs is the inability to form stable oxides with silicon germanium using standard silicon oxidation processing. A silicon germanium thermoelectric device, MHW-RTG3, was used in the Voyager 1 and 2