Physical Characteristics of Hafnium

Hafnium is used in filaments, electrodes, and some semiconductor fabrication processes for integrated circuits at 45 nm and smaller feature lengths.Hafnium is a shiny, silvery, ductile metal that is corrosion-resistant and chemically similar to zirconium (due to its having the same number of valence electrons and being in the same group). The physical properties of hafnium metal samples are markedly affected by zirconium impurities, especially the nuclear properties, as these two elements are among the most difficult to separate because of their chemical similarity.

A notable physical difference between these metals is their density, with zirconium having about one-half the density of hafnium. The most notable nuclear properties of hafnium are its high thermal neutron-capture cross-section and that the nuclei of several different hafnium isotopes readily absorb two or more neutrons apiece.In contrast with this, zirconium is practically transparent to thermal neutrons, and it is commonly used for the metal components of nuclear reactors – especially the claddings of their nuclear fuel rods.

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