Zinc sulfide

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Zinc sulfide

Zinc sulfide (or zinc sulphide) is a chemical compound

Chemical compound

A chemical compound is a Chemical substance consisting of two or more different chemical element Chemical bond together in a fixed mass ratio that can be split into simpler substances....
with the formula

Chemical formula

A chemical formula is a way of expressing information about the atoms that constitute a particular chemical compound, and how the relationship between those atoms changes in chemical reactions....
Zn

Zinc

Zinc is a metallic chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a first-row transition metal of the group 12 element of the periodic table....
S

Sulfur

Sulfur or sulphur is the chemical element that has the atomic number 16. It is denoted with the symbol S. It is an abundant Valence non-metal....
. Zinc sulfide is a white- to yellow-colored powder or crystal. It is typically encountered in the more stable cubic form, known also as zinc blende or sphalerite

Sphalerite

Sphalerite is a mineral that is the chief ore of zinc. It consists largely of zinc sulfide in crystalline form but almost always contains variable iron....
. The hexagonal form is also known both as a synthetic material and as the mineral wurtzite

Wurtzite

Wurtzite is a zinc iron sulfide mineral a less frequently encountered mineral form of sphalerite.Its crystal structure is called the Wurtzite , to which it lends its name....
. A tetragonal form is also known as very rare mineral polhemusite (Zn,Hg)S. Both sphalerite and wurtzite are intrinsic, wide-bandgap semiconductor

Semiconductor

A semiconductor is a material that has electrical conductivity between those of a Electrical conductor and an electrical insulation; it can vary over that wide range either permanently or dynamically....
s.

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Encyclopedia

Zinc sulfide (or zinc sulphide) is a chemical compound

Chemical compound

Chemical formula

Zinc

Zinc is a metallic chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. It is a first-row transition metal of the group 12 element of the periodic table....
S

Sulfur

Sphalerite

Wurtzite

Semiconductor

Band gap

In solid state physics and related applied fields, a band gap, also called an energy gap or bandgap, is an energy range in a solid where no electron states exist....
of 3.54 eV at 300 K

Kelvin

The kelvin is a Units of measurement of temperature and is one of the seven SI base units. The Kelvin scale is a Thermodynamic temperature scale where absolute zero, the theoretical absence of all thermal energy, is zero ....
whereas the hexagonal form has a band gap of 3.91 eV. The transition from the sphalerite form to the wurtzite form occurs at around 1020 ºC.

Applications

ZnS was used by Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford

Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson, Order of Merit , Royal Society was a New Zealand-born British chemist who became known as the father of nuclear physics....
and others in the early years of nuclear physics

Nuclear physics

Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies the building blocks and interactions of atomic nuclei.The most commonly known applications of nuclear physics are nuclear power and nuclear weapons, but the research field is also the basis for a far wider range of applications, including in the medical sector , in materials engineering...
as a scintillation

Scintillator

A scintillator is a material which exhibits the property of luminescence when excited by ionizing radiation. Luminescent materials, when struck by an incoming particle, absorb its energy and scintillate, i.e....
detector, because it emits light on excitation by x-rays or electron beam, making it useful for x-ray screens and cathode ray tube

Cathode ray tube

The cathode ray tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun and a fluorescent screen, with internal or external means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam, used to create images in the form of light emitted from the fluorescent screen....
s. It also exhibits phosphorescence

Phosphorescence

File:Phosphorescence.jpgFile:Phosphorescent.jpgPhosphorescence is a specific type of photoluminescence related to fluorescent. Unlike fluorescence, a phosphorescent material does not immediately re-emit the radiation it absorbs....
due to impurities on illumination with blue or ultraviolet

Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than that of visible light, but longer than x-rays, in the range 400 nanometer to 10 nm, and energies from 3 Electron volt to 124 eV....
light.

Zinc sulfide, with addition of few ppm of suitable activator, is used as phosphor

Phosphor

A phosphor is a substance that exhibits the optical phenomenon of phosphorescence .Phosphors are transition metal compounds or rare earth element compounds of various types....
in many applications, from cathode ray tube

Cathode ray tube

X-ray

X-radiation is a form of electromagnetic radiation. X-rays have a wavelength in the range of 10 to 0.01 nanometers, corresponding to frequency in the range 30 Hertz to 30 Hertz and energies in the range 120 Electron volt to 120 keV....
screens to glow in the dark products. When silver

Silver

Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....
is used as activator, the resulting color is bright blue, with maximum at 450 nm

Nanometre

A nanometre is a Units of measurement of length in the metric system, equal to one billionth of a metre .It is one of the more often used units for very small lengths, and equals ten ?ngstr?m, an internationally recognized non-International System of Units of length....
. Manganese

Manganese

Manganese is a chemical element, designated by the symbol Mn. It has the atomic number 25. It is found as a Oxidation state in nature , and in many minerals....
yields an orange-red color at around 590 nm. Copper

Copper

Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29.It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity....
provides long glow time and the familiar glow-in-the-dark greenish color. Copper doped zinc sulfide (ZnS+Cu) is used also in electroluminescent

Electroluminescence

Electroluminescence is an optical phenomenon and electrical phenomenon in which a material emits light in response to an electric current passed through it, or to a strong electric field....
panels.

Zinc sulfide is also used as an infrared

Infrared

Infrared radiation is electromagnetic radiation whose wavelength is longer than that of visible light , but shorter than that of terahertz radiation and microwaves ....
optical material, transmitting from visible wavelength

Wavelength

In physics, wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a propagating wave of a given frequency. It is commonly designated by the Greek language letter lambda ....
s to over 12 micrometre

Micrometre

A micrometre or micron is one Micro- of a metre, or equivalently one thousandth of a millimetre. It is also commonly known as a micron....
s. It can be used planar as an optical window

Optical window

The meaning of this term depends on the context:* In astronomy, the optical window is the optical portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that passes through the Earth's atmosphere all the way to the ground....
or shaped into a lens

Lens (optics)

A lens is an optics device with perfect or approximate axial symmetry which transmittance and refraction light, converging or diverging the beam....
. It is made as microcrystalline sheets by the synthesis from H₂S gas and zinc vapour and sold as FLIR (Forward Looking IR) grade ZnS a pale milky yellow visibly opaque form. This material when hot isostatically pressed

Hot isostatic pressing

Hot isostatic pressing is a manufacturing process used to reduce the porosity of metals and influence the density of many ceramic materials. This improves the mechanical properties, workability and ceramic density....
(HIPed) can be converted to a water-clear form known as Cleartran (trademark). Early commercial forms were marketed as Irtran-2 but this designation is now obsolete.

It can be doped as both n-type semiconductor

N-type semiconductor

An N-type semiconductor is obtained by carrying out a process of Doping , that is, by adding an impurity of Valence -five elements to a valence-four semiconductor in order to increase the number of free charge carriers ....
and p-type semiconductor

P-type semiconductor

A P-type semiconductor is obtained by carrying out a process of Doping , that is adding a certain type of atoms to the semiconductor in order to increase the number of free charge carriers ....
, which is unusual for the II-VI semiconductors. ZnS is a covalently bonded

Covalent bond

A covalent bond is a form of chemical bonding that is characterized by the sharing of pairs of electrons between atoms, or between atoms and other covalent bonds....
solid.

Production in lab

It is easily produced by mixing an amount of zinc and sulfur and then igniting it. The result (after cooling) is zinc sulfide.
Zinc sulfide is insoluble in water and solutions containing Zn²⁺ readily precipitate ZnS in the presence of sulfide ions (e.g. from H₂S

Hydrogen sulfide

Hydrogen sulfide is the chemical compound with the chemical formula Hydrogen2Sulfur. This colorless, toxic and flammable gas is partially responsible for the foul odor of egg and flatulence....
).

Zn²⁺ + S^2- ? ZnS

This has formed the basis of a gravimetric analysis for zinc.

External links

University of Reading