TASK DESCRIPTION:

This article appeared in the Science Daily magazine on 4 June 2021.

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Read it carefully and extracting only relevant and important scientific information:

1.    Write the abstract of a research paper (using information from the article only) to be published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Your text should not exceed 150 words (not less than 120 and not more than 180 words).

2.   You also need to provide a title for your abstract.

• You have to write your text from the point of view of the researcher(s) reported in the popular science article.

• Your text will have to differ from the popular science article in terms of both style and structure.

• You must NOT use citations in the abstract.

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STUDENT REPLY 1

Title: Silicon – a pathway to the future

 

Abstract

Silicon is one of the most essential substances used by humans. Recent research led by Carnegie's Thomas Shiell and Timothy Strobe has revealed a new method of synthesizing a novel crystalline form of silicon with a hexagonal structure. For decades, a challenging problem which aroused in this domain was the optimization of the silicon allotropes. None of its forms could perform spotlessly in next-generation technology. Previous studies of Strobel's lab had reported another form of silicon, Si24, which could be processed throughout several stages into its final form : 4H-silicon. It has four layers of hexagonal structure which endow it with great electronic properties which surpass those of the cubic form. A tool called PALLAS created by the same team revealed the structural transition between si24 and 4H-silicon so scientist could fully understand its nature. As a result they could preserve highly oriented product crystals. The contributions made here have wide applicability in the optical and electronic field as they open the door for state of the art technology.

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Instructor's comments

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STUDENT REPLY 2

Title: Developing a pathway for the synthesis of 4H-silicon using Si24 silicon.

 

Abstract

Hexagonal forms of silicon have been a topic of interest since the 1960s due to their superior performance in relation to the currently used cubic form. However, there are few methods to successfully produce them. In this work, we develop a method to synthesize hexagonally structured silicon, called 4H-silicon, of high quality. To this end, we used the previously developed Si24 type of silicon as the basis in a series of synthetic stages that led to the formation of 4H-silicon. In addition, we used the PALLAS computing tool to simulate and understand the mechanism behind the transition from Si24 to 4H-Si and the stability of the resulting material. This method of reliable synthesis of hexagonally arranged silicon could be used to upgrade existing electronic devices, such as transistors and photovoltaic panels.

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Instructor's comments