Nonmetal inconsistently classified by different authors. Elements sometimes also classified as nonmetals are the metalloids boron (B), silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), tellurium (Te), and astatine (At). The nonmetal selenium (Se) is sometimes instead classified as a metalloid, particularly in environmental chemistry. Nonmetals show more variability in their properties than do metals. These properties are largely determined by the interatomic bonding strengths and molecular structures of the nonmetals involved, both of which are subject to variation as the number of valence electrons in each nonmetal varies. Metals, in contrast, have more homogenous structures and their properties are more
Germanium-tin have already been demonstrated. In addition, germanium-tin light emitting diodes operating at room temperature have also been reported. Germanium-tin Germanium-tin is an alloy of the elements germanium and tin, both located in group 14 of the periodic table. It is only thermodynamically stable under a small composition range. Despite this limitation, it has useful properties for band gap and strain engineering of silicon integrated optoelectronic and microelectronic semiconductor devices. Germanium-tin alloys must be kinetically stabilized in order to prevent decomposition. Therefore, low temperature molecular beam epitaxy or chemical vapor deposition techniques are typically used for their synthesis. Germanium-tin alloys have