Minerals semiconducting properties

Table 2 gives electrical, magnetic, and optical properties, while Tables 3 and 4 give more details on the semiconducting properties and band structures of the most common semiconductors. Table 5 lists semiconducting minerals with typical resistivity ranges. 

Metal sulfides and several important oxides display n-type or p-type semiconducting or nieialiic properties. As a result of their electronic conductivity, cermin minerals can participate in coupled charge tmasfer processes aanlogous to a metal corroding in an electrolye, and the kinetics of leaching can be related 1o the potential of the solid in contact with the aqueous electrolyte. 

Table 1. Room temperature electrical properties of some naturally occurring semiconducting minerals.

Current computing resources often limit the range of properties and reactions that can be modeled on semiconducting mineral surfaces. Most molecular modeling applications are restricted to address properties and processes at a thin near-surface region of the material. Here, some flexibility in the number of atoms to be considered is available based on the particular semiconductor and the property being addressed. Although the focus of this review is on ab initio methods, it should be mentioned that molecular mechanics calculations (interactions based on parameterized potentials) have the ability to treat certain problems at semiconductor surfaces (see Rustad, this volume). For this application, the accuracy can be expected to depend on whether or not the... 

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