Gallium

Definition: Gallium

Gallium

Noun

1. A rare silvery (usually trivalent) metallic element; brittle at low temperatures but liquid above room temperature; occurs in trace amounts in bauxite and zinc ores.

Specialty Definitions: Gallium

Domain	Definitions
Industry	Obtained as by-product of metals and not extracted directly from one particular ore. Source: European Union. (references)
Chemistry	Chemical element:atomic number 31. Source: European Union. (references)
Health	A rare, metallic element designated by the symbol, Ga, atomic number 31, and atomic weight 69.72. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Gallium

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

Zinc - Gallium - Germanium
Al Ga In
	Full table

General

Name, Symbol, Number

Gallium, Ga, 31

Chemical series

True metals

Group, Period, Block

13 (IIIA), 4 , p

Density, Hardness

5904 kg/m³, 1.5

Appearance

silvery white

Atomic Properties

Atomic weight

69.723 amu

Atomic radius (calc.)

130 (136)pm

Covalent radius

126 pm

van der Waals radius

187 pm

Electron configuration

[Ar]33d¹⁰ 4s² 4p¹

e^- 's per energy level

2, 8, 18, 3

Oxidation states (Oxide)

3 (amphoteric)

Crystal structure

Orthorhombic

Physical Properties

State of matter

Solid

Melting point

302.91 K (85.57 °F)

Boiling point

2477 K (3999 °F)

Molar volume

11.80 ×1010^-3 m³/mol

Heat of vaporization

258.7 kJ/mol

Heat of fusion

5.59 kJ/mol

Vapor pressure

9.31 E-36 Pa at 302.9 K

Speed of sound

2740 m/s at 293.15 K

Miscellaneous

Electronegativity

1.81 (Pauling scale)

Specific heat capacity

370 J/(kg*K)

Electrical conductivity

6.78 10⁶/m ohm

Thermal conductivity

40.6 W/(m*K)

1^st ionization potential

578.8 kJ/mol

2^nd ionization potential

1979.3 kJ/mol

3^rd ionization potential

2963 kJ/mol

4^th ionization potential

6180 kJ/mol

Most Stable Isotopes

iso	NA	half-life	DM	DE MeV	DP
⁶⁹Ga	60.1%	Ga is stable with 38 neutrons
⁷¹Ga	39.9%	Ga is stable with 39 neutrons

SI units & STP are used except where noted.

Gallium is a chemical element in the periodic table that has the symbol Ga and atomic number 31. A rare, soft silvery metallic true metal, gallium is brittle at low temperatures but is liquid above room temperature and occurs in trace amounts in bauxite and zinc ores. Gallium arsenide is used as a semiconductor, most notably in light-emitting diodes (LEDs).

Notable Characteristics

Very-pure gallium has a stunning silvery color and its solid metal fractures conchoidaly like glass. Gallium metal expands 3.1 percent when it solidifys and therefore shouldn't be stored in either glass or metal containers. Gallium also corrodes most other metals by diffusing into their metal lattice.

Gallium is one of four metals (with cesium, mercury, and rubidium) which are liquid at near normal room temperature and can therefore be used in high-temperature thermometers. It is also notable for having one of the largest liquid ranges for a metal and for having a low vapor pressure at high temperatures.

This metal has a strong tendency supercool below its melting point thus necessitating seeding in order to solidify. High-purity gallium is attacked slowly by mineral acids. The melting point temperature is very low, T=30 °C, and the density is higher in the liquid state than in the crystalline state (like in the case of water; the opposite effect is normally found for metals).

Ga does not crystallize in any of the simple crystal structures. The stable phase under normal conditions is orthorhombic with 8 atoms in the conventional unit cell. Each atom has only one nearest neighbor (at a distance of 2.44 Å) and six other neighbors within additional 0.39 Å. Many stable and metastable phases are found as function of temperature and pressure.

The bonding between the nearest neighbors is found to be of covalent character, hence Ga₂ dimers is seen as the fundamental building block of the crystal. The compound, gallium arsenide can convert electricity directly into coherent light (this property is vital to light-emitting diodes).

Applications

Analog integrated circuits are the largest application for gallium, with optoelectronic devices (mostly laser diodes and light-emitting diodes) as the second largest end use. Other uses;

Since it wets glass or porcelain, gallium is used to create brilliant mirrors.
Used widely to dope semiconductors and produce solid-state devices like transistors.
Gallium readily alloys with most metals, and has been used as a component in low-melting alloys.

Magnesium gallate containing impurities (such as Mn⁺²), is beginning to be used in ultraviolet-activated phosphor powder.

History

Gallium (Latin Gallia meaning "France"; also gallus, meaning "cock") was discovered spectroscopically by Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1875 by its characteristic spectrum (two violet lines) in an examination of a zinc blende from the Pyrenees. Before its discovery, most of its properties had been predicted and described by Dmitri Mendeleev (who called the hypothetical element eka-aluminum) on the basis of its position in his periodic table. Later in 1875, Boisbaudran obtained the free metal through the electrolysis hydroxide in KOH solution. He named the element after his native land of France and, in one of those multilingual puns so beloved of men of science of the early 19th century, after himself, as 'Lecoq' = the rooster, and Latin for rooster is "gallus".

Occurrence

This true metal is oftentimes found as a trace component in bauxite, coal, diaspore, germanite, and sphalerite. Some flue dusts from burning coal have been shown to contain as much 1.5 percent gallium.

External Links

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Gallium."

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Abbreviations & Acronyms: Gallium

The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted.
Entry	Source	Expression	Field
GaAs	English	Gallium arsenide	Computing, Chemistry
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Synonym: Gallium

Synonym: atomic number 31 (n). (additional references)

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Crosswords: Gallium

English words defined with "gallium": Ekaluminium. (references)

Specialty definitions using "gallium": bubble memory ♦ CHARGE PREPARATION TECHNICIAN, Cleavage of Lateral Epitaxial Films for Transfer, CRYSTAL GROWER, crystal growing furnace operator ♦ EPITAXIAL REACTOR OPERATOR ♦ gallium antimonide, Gallium Arsenide, gallium arsenide filter, Gallium Isotopes, gallium nitrate, gallium phosphide, Gallium Radioisotopes, gallium-arsenide laser, gallium-face ♦ laser diode ♦ Photovoltaic Device ♦ semiconductor laser ♦ Thin Film. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Gallium" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Dutch (gallium), French (gallium), German (gallium), Hungarian (gallium), Swedish (gallium).

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Commercial Usage: Gallium

Domain	Title
Books	Gallium Arsenide and Related Compounds 1988: Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Symposium (Institute of Physics Conference Series, No. 96) (reference) Gallium Nitride 1,2 (reference) Gallium Nitride and Related Materials: The First International Symposium on Gallium Nitride and Related Materials Held November 27-December 1, 1995,) (reference) Properties of Gallium Arsenide (Emis Datareviews , No 16) (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Gallium

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		Evidence of tumor spread is sought with x-rays, tomograms, gallium scan, bone scan, liver scan, and bone marrow examination. (references)
		However, since any type of inflammation causes gallium uptake, a positive gallium scan does not necessarily mean that the patient has sarcoidosis. (references)
		Increases in gallium uptake at any site in the body indicate that inflammatory activity has developed at the site and also give an idea of which tissue, and how much tissue, has been affected. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: Gallium

"Gallium" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 88.10% of the time. "Gallium" is used about 42 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	88.1%	37	56,631
Noun (proper)	9.52%	4	175,879
Noun (common)	2.38%	1	339,140
Total	100.00%	42	N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Gallium

Expressions using "gallium": gallium antimonide ♦ gallium arsenide ♦ gallium arsenide filter ♦ Gallium Isotopes ♦ gallium nitrate ♦ gallium nitride ♦ gallium phosphide ♦ Gallium Radioisotopes. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "gallium": gallium-arsenide, gallium-face, gallium-nitride.
	Ending with "gallium": germanium-gallium, silicon-gallium.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Gallium

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
gallium	51
gallium scan	27
gallium nitride	13
gallium arsenide	10
gallium test	5
gallium nitrate	3
67 gallium	2
gallium antimonide	2
gallium metal	2
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Gallium

Language		Translations for "gallium"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Albanian		galium. (various references)

Arabic		‏الغاليوم عنصر فلزي نادر. (various references)

Bulgarian		галий. (various references)

Chinese		鎵 , �". (various references)

Czech		kovový prvek (dysprosium, erbium, europium, gadolinium, lanthanum, masurium, osmium, palladium, strontium). (various references)

Danish		gallium. (various references)

Dutch		gallium. (various references)

Esperanto		galiumo. (various references)

Finnish		galliumnitridin kielletty energiavyö (gallium-nitride band gap), galliumnitridi (gallium nitride), galliumkiteen pinta (gallium-face), galliumfosfidi (gallium phosphide), galliumarsenidisuodatin (gallium arsenide filter, gallium-arsenide optical filter), galliumarsenidi (gallium arsenide), galliumantimonidi (gallium antimonide), puolijohdelaseri (gallium-arsenide laser, laser diode, semiconductor laser), diodilaseri (gallium-arsenide laser, laser diode, semiconductor laser). (various references)

French		gallium. (various references)

German		Gallium. (various references)

Greek		γάλλιο. (various references)

Hungarian		gallium. (various references)

Italian		gallio (lady's bedstraw, yellow bedstraw, yellow galium). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		ガリア戦記 (History of the Gallic Wars). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		ガリウ� . (various references)

Manx		galliam. (various references)

Pig Latin		alliumgay.(various references)

Portuguese		gálio (gallivant), frasco (bottle, flagon, flask, phial, vial). (various references)

Romanian		galiu. (various references)

Russian		галлий. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		galijum. (various references)

Spanish		galio. (various references)

Swedish		gallium. (various references)

Ukranian		галій. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Gallium

Derivations
	Words beginning with "gallium": galliums. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Gallium" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: alium, altium, ballum, Gallicum, gallieo, galligu, Gallion, gallorum, Galluim, galum, Malloum, Palfium. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Gallium"

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "gallium" (pronounced ga"lēum)
5	-a" l ē u m	thallium.
4	-l ē u m	beryllium, helium, linoleum, nobelium, petroleum, psyllium.
3	-ē u m	alluvium, ammonium, aquarium, atrium, auditorium, axiom, bacterium, barium, cadmium, calcium, cesium, chromium, colloquium, compendium, condominium, consortium, crematorium, delirium, deuterium, disequilibrium, emporium, equilibrium, europium, fermium, geranium, gonium, gymnasium, hafnium, harmonium, Herbarium, holmium, honorarium, idiom, indium, iridium, lawrencium, lithium, magnesium, medium, millennium, minium, moratorium, myocardium, nephridium, neptunium, niobium, opium, opprobrium, osmium, palladium, pandemonium, paramecium, planetarium, Plasmodium, plutonium, podium, polonium, potassium, premium, presidium, promethium, protium, radium, requiem, rhodium, selenium, sodium, stadium, strontium, superpremium, symposium, tedium, tellurium, thorium, titanium, tritium, uranium, vanadium, yttrium, zirconium.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Gallium

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-g-i-l-l-m-u"
	-1 letter: allium, ligula.
	-2 letters: algum, almug, glial, maill, miaul, mulla.
	-3 letters: alum, gall, gaum, gill, glia, glim, glum, gull, iglu, lima, magi, mail, mall, maul, mill, mull.
	-4 letters: ail, aim, all, ami, amu, gal, gam, gul, gum, ill, lag, lam, lug, lum, mag, mig, mil, mug.
	-5 letters: ag, ai, al, am, la, li, ma, mi, mu, um.
	Words containing the letters "a-g-i-l-l-m-u"
	+1 letter: galliums, mulligan.
	+2 letters: mulligans.
	+3 letters: maquillage.
	+4 letters: aspergillum, gallimaufry, maquillages, monolingual, umbrellaing.
	+5 letters: aspergillums, bilingualism, illuminating, meaningfully, metallurgies, metallurgist, monolinguals, mulligatawny, multilingual, museological.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.