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this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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It's a nitpick, but since we got out the important details, technically they're semimetals, or simple compounds with semimetalic properties.
An actual metal doesn't have the separation between electron bands necessary to support multiple different conduction regimes (i.e. the magic). Again, a nitpick.
Interesting. I knew they were semiconductors, but I didn't know they were also semimetals. Thanks for the details!
Yeah, there's a lot of overlap there. TBH I suspect semimetal is just what we called things in between the two electronic structures before we had quantum mechanics to explain it, but that's a guess.
Like I mentioned in my own reply, silicon is fairly metal-like physically, but it's hard and brittle like diamond above it on the periodic table, as opposed to being ductile like every true metal is to a degree (AFAIK).