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• n  a brittle grey crystalline element that is a semiconducting metalloid (resembling silicon) used in transistors; occurs in germanite and argyrodite

• Until this time, nearly all transistors had utilized germanium because it was easier to prepare in pure form.
• The invention of transistors twelve years ago enabled a speck of germanium to do the work of the vacuum tube, but most of the rest of the circuitry was still needed.
• In the outer shell of its atom, germanium has four electrons.

• Ge
• atomic number 32

News & Articles

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• Atomic weights of five elements tweaked
  By Megan Gannon LiveScienceStandard atomic weights, those numbers emblazoned under the elements on the periodic table, were once thought of as unchanging constants of nature.But researchers have tweaked the atomic weights of five elements — magnesium, bromine, germanium, indiumand mercury — in a new table published by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC).To calculate ...
  June 14, 2013 - NBC NEWS

Quotes

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• Johannes Kepler in CNET News.com
  We planned it (silicon germanium) all along with 65-nanometer, but we were prepared to pull the plug on it if it didn't add up to a benefit,Kepler said. "Adding embedded silicon germanium is probably the biggest change."
• Nick Holonyak Jr in Science Daily (press release)
  In retrospect, we could say the groundwork for this was laid more than 56 years ago with John Bardeen and Walter Brattain and their first germanium transistor,said Holonyak, who was Bardeen's first graduate student. "But the direct...
• Shunsuke Nakamura in Reuters UK
  The coaching staff brought some bathing ingredients from Japan for us too -- onsen minerals or something,said Nakamura. "I think there was germanium too. I also got some from fans at the airport when we left. It helps get rid of fatigue...