Explosive silicon General information about silicon

Explosive silicon

General information about silicon

Silicon is present in the sun and stars and is a principal component of a class of meteorites known as aerolites. Silicon makes up 25.7% of the earth’s crust by weight, and is the second most abundant element, exceeded only by oxygen. It is found largely as silicon oxides such as sand (silica), quartz, rock crystal, amethyst, agate, flint, jasper and opal. Silicon is found also in minerals such as asbestos, feldspar, clay and mica.

Silicon is important in plant and animal life. Diatoms in both fresh and salt water extract silica from the water to use as a component of their cell walls. Silicon is an important ingredient in steel. Silicon carbide is one of the most important abrasives. Workers in environments where siliceous dust is breathed may develop a serious lung disease known as silicosis.

How are the explosives made?

Silicon-based explosive devices and methods of manufacture are provided. In this regard, a representative method involves: providing a doped silicon substrate; depositing undoped silicon on a first side of the substrate; and infusing an oxidizer into an area bounded at least in part by the undoped silicon; wherein the undoped silicon limits an exothermic reaction of the doped silicon to the bounded area. Another representative method involves: providing a doped silicon substrate; depositing a masking layer of low-pressure chemical vapor deposited (LPCVD) Silicon nitride to the first side of the substrate; patterning the nitride mask and etching the porous silicon, and infusing oxidizer into an area bounded by the LPCVD nitride; wherein the silicon nitride limits an exothermic reaction of the doped silicon to the bounded area.

Evidences of the use

“In 2007, outside Bangalore, India, an explosion decapitated an industrial worker, hurling his body through a brick wall. In 2005 a routine procedure at a manufacturing plant in Taiwan caused a spontaneous explosion that killed a worker and ignited a blaze that ripped through the factory, shutting down production for three months. Both incidents shared a common cause—silane, a gas made up of silicon and hydrogen that explodes on contact with air. And both incidents occurred in the same industry—solar power.”

“An accidental explosion in a German physics lab has led to the identification of a superpowerful explosive. The substance - an exotic form of silicon - releases seven times as much energy as TNT, and explodes a million times faster.

“This might be the strongest explosive ever discovered,” says Dmitri Kovalev, the physicist who runs the laboratory at the Technical University of Munich in Garching.

Kovalev and his team were studying the optical properties of porous silicon, a sponge-like material. The group had cooled the silicon in a vacuum to the temperature of liquid nitrogen, when suddenly a leak in their equipment allowed

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