Light silicon carbides

Silicon is important to plant and animal life. Diatoms in both fresh and salt water extract Silica from the water to build their cell walls. Silica is present in the ashes of plants and in the human skeleton. Silicon is an important ingredient in steel silicon carbide is one of the most important abrasives and has been used in lasers to produce coherent light of 4560 A. 

As these experiments indicate, polysilanes can in some cases be converted to silicon carbide directly, without the necessity for formation of polycarbosilane, fractionation, or oxidation. For example, polysilastyrene copolymers can be formed into films or fibers and then crosslinked by irradiation with UV light. The crosslinked polysilane forms silicon carbide when heated to 1100°C in vacuum. (1U This method can be used in a "printing" mode, if a film of polysilane is cast onto a ceramic or metal substrate, then... 

J. Edmond, H. Kong, G. Negley, M. Leonard, K Doverspike, fV. Weeks, A. Suvorov, D. Waltz, and C. Carter, Jr., SiC-Based UV Photodiodes and Light-Emitting Diodes H. Morkog, Beyond Silicon Carbide III-V Nitride-Based Heterostructures and Devices... 

Microstructures of the two siliconized silicon carbide materials, (a) SiC-C and (b) SiC-S, observed with reflected light under an optical microscope, showing different reflective indexes between Si (light) and SiC (dark). 

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