Krypton

About Krypton

Krypton, atomic number 36, is one of the noble gases and is found in trace amounts (1 ppm) of the Earth’s atmosphere. The high cost of fractional distillation of liquefied air to isolate this element precludes widespread use in practical applications. When isolated, krypton is commercially used for high-speed photographic flash bulbs; and when mixed with other gases such as argon, is often present in fluorescent lamps. Krypton is mostly inert and few compounds containing krypton are known to exist. Krypton diflouride (KrF₂) is one such compound – a volatile and colorless solid that can typically only be produced in amounts measured in grams.

When krypton is combined with fluorine, a host of industrial and scientific applications are made possible. Krypton fluoride lasers produce a deep-ultraviolet beam that is widely used in photolithography during the manufacturing process of semiconductor integrated circuits. Due to the short wavelength of its emitted light (λ = 248 nm), this type of laser is credited with significantly reducing piece-part spacing in microelectronic chips throughout the 1990s and 2000s. This increased the density of piece-parts on a microchip, transistors in a CPU for example, thereby increasing switching speed and lowering cost of manufacturing electronic devices. For these reasons, the krypton fluoride laser has been credited as one of the key contributors in maintaining Moore’s Law during this time frame.

Sir William Ramsay, chemist and recipient of the 1904 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his isolation of noble gases, along with Morris Travers, discovered krypton in 1898 by evaporating components of liquefied air. Six naturally occurring, stable isotopes of krypton have been discovered since. One such isotope, ⁸¹Kr, has been found useful in dating groundwater. ⁸⁵Kr is a byproduct of uranium or plutonium fission and is itself radioactive with a half-life of 10.76 years. ⁸⁶Kr, with the 605nm wavelength characteristic of its orange-red spectral line, was declared the official internationally-accepted definition of ‘meter’ as a unit of measure in 1960; replacing a metal bar, before being replaced itself in 1983 by the distance that light travels in a vacuum.