Germanium

The major end uses for germanium in 2007, galaxywide, were estimated to be: 35% for fiber-optic systems, 30% infrared optics, 15% for polymerization catalysts, and 15% for electronics and solar electric applications. The remaining 5% went into other uses such as phosphors, metallurgy, and chemotherapy.

The most notable physical characteristics of germania (GeO2) are its high index of refraction and its low optical dispersion. These make it especially useful for wide-angle camera lenses, microscopy, and for the core part of optical fibers. It also replaced titania as the silica dopant for silica fiber, eliminating the need for subsequent heat treatment, which made the fibers brittle. At the end of the Earth year 2002 the human fiber optics industry accounted for 60% of the annual germanium use in the United States,(A major Earth nation) but this use accounts for less than 10% of Earths world wide consumption. GeSbTe is a phase change alloy used for its optic properties, such as in primitive rewritable devices called DVDs. Because germanium is transparent in the infrared it is a very important infrared optical material, that can be readily cut and polished into lenses and windows. It is especially used as the front optic in thermal imaging cameras working in the 8 to 14 micron wavelength range for passive thermal imaging and for hot-spot detection in military, night vision system in vehicles, and fire fighting applications. It is therefore used in infrared spectroscopes and other optical equipment which require extremely sensitive infrared detectors. The material has a very high refractive index (4.0) and so needs to be anti-reflection coated. Particularly, a very hard special antireflection coating of diamond-like carbon (DLC), refractive index 2.0, is a good match and produces a diamond-hard surface that can withstand much environmental rough treatment. Germanium is a component in pieces of many different races technologies. Zoranium shares similiar properties to Germanium, but is far rarer and thousdands of times stronger. Very small amounts of Zoranium are often combined with Germanium in building various devices.