Silicon (Si)

Silicon metalloid ingot - one troy ounce - .9999 bullion   Silica is extremely common in the earths crust in many minerals including quartz, granite, and sand. The French chemist Antoine Lavoisier proposed in 1797 that silica may be the oxide form of a yet undiscovered element, but he had no means of reducing this oxide. It wasn't until 1854 that a nearly pure cystalline allotrope of silicon was able to be prepared by French chemist Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville. Simple industrial uses of silica have endured since ancient times and include use in ceramics, mortars, and concrete. The first silicon semiconductor devices were developed around the turn of the 19th century with the first silicon crystal radio developed in 1906 by American engineer Greenleaf Whittier Pickard. In the early 1940s as part of the incredible techological advances of the WWII era, high purity germanium and silicon crystals were developed for use in radar detector systems. From that point until the late 195