SILICON

The checkerboard-like planar

atomic structure. No. 1.

Helmut Albert

Imprint

Cover picture: Silicon-28 atom

Responsible person: Helmut Albert, Talstraße 63,

79102 Freiburg / Germany

E-mail: hm.albert@t-online.de

Text and illustrations:

© Copyright Helmut Albert 2021

Printed by: epubli - a service of Neopubli GmbH, Berlin

Preliminary remarks

This e-book is the digitised edition of the paper with the same title already published as a print book. Changes have been made insofar as they were necessary for the e-book format. The translation from German was done with DeepL Pro.

Science and research are currently in the process of discovering more and more two-dimensional molecular structures of different elements. Although the detectable properties of the layered structures are hardly compatible with the idea of a core-shell atom, the outdated idea of electron orbitals is still held on to. A conception that has long been untenable due to numerous inconsistencies. The paper makes it clear that two-dimensional, molecular atomic layers must also have their basis in two-dimensionally constructed atoms. The checkerboard-like, planar atomic structure by protons and neutrons is the natural atomic structure that determines both the two- and the three-dimensional, molecular structures. The paper refers in parts to earlier publication by the author on the checkerboard-like-planar atomic structure. (cf. Albert 2017, 2019a, 2019b, 2021).

Helmut Albert, Freiburg, October 2021

1.0       Two-dimensional structures

Since the discovery and production of single-layer atomic layers of carbon, known as graphene, after the turn of the millennium, scientific interest in two-dimensional molecular structures has steadily increased worldwide. Particularly because people want to make these materials usable for the semiconductor industry. The most important material in the semiconductor industry to date is silicon, which forms hexagonal structures like carbon layers, but does not have the same advantageous properties of graphene. Numerous research projects are therefore aimed at further investigating the properties and molecular structures of silicon and making them usable.

At the end of 2020 and 2021, press releases from the Universities of Bonn and Heidelberg about "flat" and "two-dimensional" silicon compounds attracted attention. While researchers at the University of Bonn were able to produce and demonstrate the structure of a silicon compound as a flat trapezoid, researchers at the University of Heidelberg succeeded in building and demonstrating a square-planar arrangement. The press release of the University of Bonn states that the scientists were astonished by the "unusual stability" of the planar molecules and the University of Heidelberg reports that the scientists described the stability of the molecular configuration as a "surprise" (cf. Ebner, Greb 2021; Ghana et al. 2020); (University of Bonn 2020; University of Heidelberg 2021).

For the author of this paper, these experimental results are highly interesting, but not surprising; rather, they are confirmation of his theory of the checkerboard-like-planar atomic structure, which has been published in several papers since 2017. Already in the publication "Atomic model with checkerboard-like structure", one thesis is: The atomic structure is checkerboard-like and planar (Albert, Albert 2017: 21). Further publications were: "Theory of the planar and checkerboard structure of atomic rectangles" as well as the publication: "Imagine checkerboard-like atoms" 2021, with the illustration of the square-planar structure of the silicon isotope 28 and its valences. With the acceptance of this theory, a great advance in materials and semiconductor research would already be possible. As will be shown in the course of the paper, the theory and the atomic model already allow predictions to be made about most elements.

In order to substantiate this claim concretely, the following chapters explain the basics that contribute to a better understanding and calculability of the elements, using the silicon atom as an example. The proton-neutron configuration of the silicon atom is shown in detail. It is made clear why each proton and neutron site is important for the valence of an atom, which compounds silicon can form and what effect the mass number has on a silicon isotope.

In the paper, scientific fields such as physics and chemistry are combined and referred to as "science" for the sake of simplicity.

2.0       State of the science

The molecule silicon dioxide occurs on earth in large quantities as quartz. Elemental silicon is obtained from it in several processes and by adding carbon. (cf. Wacker Chemie, n.d.). Because of its semiconductor properties, silicon is mainly used in microelectronics. Silicon can be monocrystalline, polycrystalline or have an amorphous structure. Only monocrystalline silicon is highly pure and has a uniform crystal lattice, which is available sawn into slices for circuits and solar modules. In contrast, polycrystalline silicon is coarser because it consists of many individual crystals. However, it is more cost-effective for the solar industry. Completely without an ordered crystal structure is amorphous silicon, which can be produced cheaply, but only has half the properties of pure silicon. (cf. Datacom n.d.)

Valence and bonding

The valency defines the ratio of atoms or ions that bond. The number of electrons that are given or taken up by the bonding partners is decisive. According to the octtet rule, the valence in the first two periods of the PSE depends on the valence electrons. For some elements, such as fluorine and hydrogen, the valence with "I" is always the same, while for others, such as iron, it varies. The value is given in Roman numerals after the element name. It can have different values in different chemical compounds and can also be given as an oxidation number instead of a valency. This can be the case, for example, with oxygen -II. (cf. Spectrum o.D.)

Orbital Model / Theory

The physicists E. Schrödinger and W. Heisenberg are regarded as the developers of the orbital model of 1925 / 26. According to this model, electrons can be understood as standing waves and the state of an electron can be described as an orbital. The occupation of the orbitals is analogous to the periodic table, whereby the number of electrons in the 1st and 2nd period is equal to the number of elements in a period. Therefore, while in the 1st period the 1s orbital is filled with 2 electrons, the 8 electrons of the 2nd period are distributed over the 2s and 2p orbitals. In the 3rd period, 8 electrons are also distributed to the following 3d orbitals. Whereas in the 4th period, 18 electrons fill up the orbitals for the first time. The other orbitals are filled up in the same way. According to the orbital model, all elements of a main group have the same number of electrons in the outer orbitals. Thus, the elements of a main group should also have the same chemical properties. (cf. The orbital model 1, 2012: 8).

Molecular geometry

The constellations of atoms in chemical compounds are described with the molecular geometry or coordination geometry. For example, in silicon dioxide, a central silicon atom is connected to four oxygen atoms forming a tetrahedral