Silicon carbide
chemical compound
Silicon carbide (SiC), also known as carborundum (), is a hard chemical compound of silicon and carbon. A wide bandgap semiconductor, it occurs in nature as the extremely rare mineral moissanite, but has been mass-produced as powder and crystals since 1893 for use as an abrasive. Grains of silicon carbide can be bonded together by sintering to form very hard ceramics that are widely used in applications requiring high endurance, such as disc brakes, clutches and ballistic plates in bulletproof vests. Large single crystals of silicon carbide can be grown by the Lely method and they can be cut into synthetic moissanite gemstones.
Electronic applications of silicon carbide such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and detectors in early radios were first demonstrated around 1907. Silicon carbide is used in semiconductor electronic devices that operate at high temperatures, high voltages or both.
Natural occurrence
Naturally occurring moissanite is found in only minute quantities in certain types of meteorite, corundum deposits and kimberlite. Virtually all the silicon carbide sold in the world, including moissanite jewelry, is synthetic.
Natural moissanite was first found in 1893 as a small component of the Canyon Diablo meteorite in Arizona by Ferdinand Henri Moissan, after whom the material was named in 1905. Moissan's discovery of naturally occurring SiC was initially disputed because his sample may have been contaminated by silicon carbide saw blades that were already on the market at that time.
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This entry incorporates text from “Silicon carbide” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.