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How do impurities affect the structure and properties of a solid?

You already know that to obtain a perfectly pure substance is almost impossible. Purification is a costly process. In general, analytical reagent-grade chemicals are of high purity, and yet few of them are better than 99.9% pure. This means that a foreign atom or molecule is present for every 1000 host atoms or molecules in the crystal.

Perhaps the most demanding of purity is in the electronic industry. Silicon crystals of 99.999 (called 5 nines) or better are required for IC chips productions. These crystal are doped with nitrogen group elements of P and As or boron group elemnts B, Al etc to form n- aand p-type semiconductors. In these crystals, the impurity atom substitute atoms of the host crystals.

Presence minute foreign atoms with one electron more or less than the valence four silicon and germanium host atoms is the key of making n- aand p-type semiconductors. Having many simiconductors connected in a single chip makes the integrated circuit a very efficient information processor. The electronic properties change dramatically due to these impurities. This is further described in Inorganic Chemistry by Swaddle.

In other bulk materials, the presence of impurity usually leads to a lowering of melting point. For example, Hall and Heroult tried to electorlyze natural aluminum (aluminium) compounds. They discovered that using a 5% mixture of Al2O3 (melting point 273 K) in cryolite Na3AlF6 (melting point 1273 K) reduced the melting point to 1223 K, and that enabled the production of aluminum in bulk. Recent modifications lowered melting temperatures below 933 K.

Some types of glass are made by mixing silica (SiO2), alumina (Al2O3), calcium oxide (CaO), and sodium oxide (Na2O). They are softer, but due to lower melting points, they are cheaper to produce.

What are color centers and how do they affect electric conductivity of solids?

Color centers are imperfections in crystals that cause color (defects that cause color by absorption of light). Due to defects, metal oxides may also act as semiconductors, because there are many different types of electron traps. Electrons in defect region only absorb light at certain range of wavelength. The color seen are due to lights not absorbed.

For example, a diamond with C vacancies (missing carbon atoms) absorbs light, and these centers give green color as shown here. Replacement of Al3+ for Si4+ in quartz give rise to the color of smoky quartz.

A high temperature phase of ZnOx, (x <>

Some non-stoichiometric solids are engineered to be n-type or p-type semiconductors. Nickel oxide NiO gain oxygen on heating in air, resulting in having Ni3+ sites acting as electron trap, a p-type semiconductor. On the other hand, ZnO lose oxygen on heating, and the excess Zn metal atoms in the sample are ready to give electrons. The solid is an n-type semiconductor.