Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-chemistry-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2024/paper-1/6/e/solution

HgS and are semiconductors; is a wider-gap, insulating material under the stated conditions. None is a metallic conductor. Their finite electronvolt-scale gaps and very low measured conductivities exclude a partially filled, highly conducting metallic band picture.
The insulator/semiconductor boundary is conventional rather than a sharp universal gap cutoff. Calling the material a wide-bandgap semiconductor is also physically reasonable; the table alone does not establish a unique naming boundary. Conductivity is , so its ordering need not follow gap size alone: carrier density, defects, trapping and mobility also matter.

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