Question

Give two uses of Germanium.

Answer 1

Germanium was one of the elements whose existence was predicted in 1869 by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, after he noticed a gap between silicon and tin in his periodic table. Mendeleev provisionally called the predicted element eka-silicon. Germanium was discovered by Clemens. It is a lustrous, hard, gray-white semi-metallic element with a crystalline and brittle structure. It is a semiconductor.

Complete answer:
The use of germanium is in the semiconductor industry. When doped with small amounts of arsenic, gallium, indium, antimony or phosphorus, germanium is used to make transistors for use in electronic devices.
It is used to create alloy and as a phosphor in fluorescent lamps. Both germanium and germanium oxide are transparent to infrared radiation and infrared detectors. Some germanium compounds seem to be effective in killing some types of bacteria and are currently being studied for use in chemotherapy.
Additional information:
Germanium is metalloid, which means it has properties of both metals and nonmetals. Other metalloids on the periodic table are boron, silicon, arsenic, antimony, tellurium and polonium. Germanium is one of the few elements that expand when it freezes, like water does, according to chemistry.

Note: Germanium is commonly used in detectors in a variety of fields, according to a study published in an applied physics letter in 2016. The study discusses the high efficiency of germanium photodetectors when used in the visible and near infrared spectra of light. The germanium detectors were compared to conventional silicon-based photodetectors and according to the authors, had better signal to noise ratio.