How are metals similar to metalloids?

1 Answer
Sep 21, 2014

Metalloids are similar to metals in that they both have valence orbitals that are highly delocalized over macroscopic volumes, which generally allows them to be electrical conductors. However, metalloids usually have at least a small energy gap between the valence band and the conduction band, making them intrinsic semiconductors rather than pure conductors like metal.

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