cornish semiconductor corporation - Recent changes [en]

ACE R&D project

Cornish semiconductor — Sun, 23 Aug 2026 21:41:59 GMT

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			==23/08/26==

			Couple of hours recording, mixing ewtowan samples with the more easy to use Ale & Cakes [[galena]] and Penstruthal [[chalcocite]]. Getting a bit more to grips with [[chaotic triangle]] again, super for bass. In minimal a gig setup, single volca and only 3 voices. Noticed quiet square this time was down to tiny adjustment in 1920's galena diode in the ladder filter.

			[a&c gal] noise (w/wo ladder) -> <- tri [pen chal]
			[ewt chalcop/py/etc] square -> ladder (xtal) ->

			Quality of life fixes and improvements before gig:

			* Sort cat's whiskers so the fit the bases properly - mount in threads somehow (raid B&Q plumbing)
			* Connectors for cat's whiskers are still really bad, crimp mini-pv connectors. Can these be left connected to save time?
			* Build [[chaotic relaxation]] module
			* Incorporate new galena diode
			* How to highlight crystals?
			* Record dx7 patches through transmitter/xtal radio for backing track
			* New field recording needed?

	==22/08/26==		==22/08/26==

Semiconductor curve traces

Cornish semiconductor — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 21:38:01 GMT

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[File:TestingCurves.jpg|500px|right]]
+The curve trace plots you can see on this site are made with an oscilloscope and are the amount of current that a substance allows to flow through it across a range of voltages (from -2.5V to 2.5V) unless otherwise specified.
-The curve trace plots you can see on this site are made with an oscilloscope and are the amount of current that a substance allows to flow through it across a range of voltages (from -2.5V to 2.5V) unless otherwise specified.
+==All curve plots==
-[[Category:Todo]]
+{|

Semiconductor history

Cornish semiconductor — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 11:33:06 GMT

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	[[File:Radio-breadboard.jpg\|center\|frame\|Using the Junior with a piece of [[galena]] from Wheal Clinton, Flushing and an experimental [[chaotic triangle\|chaotic triangle circuit]].]]		[[File:Radio-breadboard.jpg\|center\|frame\|Using the Junior with a piece of [[galena]] from Wheal Clinton, Flushing and an experimental [[chaotic triangle\|chaotic triangle circuit]].]]

			==Another galena cat's whisker diode==

			This one is not quite as crusty as it looks, but I'll try and give it a clean and sort out a mounting base for it as it should be useful for live performaces. The galena crystal has somehow survived the ravages of time, but I'm not quite sure how to remove it - it doesn't seem to be mounted in wood's metal, but it's attached mechanically.

			[[File:Oldcatswhisker.jpg]]

ACE R&D project

Cornish semiconductor — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 11:29:44 GMT

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			==22/08/26==

			Milling a [[chaotic relaxation]] PCB in preparation for a performance at the end of next month.

			[[File:Bcnc.jpg\|500px]][[File:Freshcut.jpg\|500px]]

			==12/08/26==

			Picked up another (extraordinarily cheap) cat's whisker on ebay, when you can get them as parts its much better. This one is not quite as crusty as it looks, but I'll try and give it a clean and sort out a mounting base for it as it should be useful for live performaces. The galena crystal has somehow survived the ravages of time, but I'm not quite sure how to remove it - it doesn't seem to be mounted in wood's metal, but it's attached mechanically.

			[[File:Oldcatswhisker.jpg]]

	==29/07/26==		==29/07/26==

File:Freshcut.jpg

Cornish semiconductor — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 11:29:03 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:Freshcut.jpg

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File:Bcnc.jpg

Cornish semiconductor — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 11:28:06 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:Bcnc.jpg

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File:Oldcatswhisker.jpg

Cornish semiconductor — Sat, 22 Aug 2026 11:23:13 GMT

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Variscan Synthesis

Cornish semiconductor — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 09:49:21 GMT

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	* Incorporate 1920s [[Semiconductor history\|crystal wireless technology]].		* Incorporate 1920s [[Semiconductor history\|crystal wireless technology]].
	* No tuning.		* No tuning.

			[[File:Catswhiskers.jpg\|500px\|right]]

	In practice:		In practice:

Synths

Cornish semiconductor — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 08:54:00 GMT

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			[[File:Variscan.jpg]]

	== General technology ==		== General technology ==

Terroir

Cornish semiconductor — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 20:25:54 GMT

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	Much effort and money is spent making electronic components consistent and reliable. They are in fact all slightly different, but by and large you can't tell, and in digital circuits these irregularities only appear under drastic circumstances.		Much effort and money is spent making electronic components consistent and reliable. They are in fact all slightly different, but by and large you can't tell, and in digital circuits these irregularities only appear under drastic circumstances.

	Making electronics with natural semiconducting material is quite another thing - some minerals ([[chalcocite]] or [[~~pyrite~~]] for example) seem to vary in their characteristics depending where they come from, sometimes it may be down to the vein or lode where they originate, or the depth of the mine they were extracted from. This is not surprising, as they contain different amounts of impurities due to how and when they solidified. Crystallisation may take place in a series of events over weeks, centuries or millions of years, as different solutions wash through the rock.		Making electronics with natural semiconducting material is quite another thing - some minerals ([[chalcocite]], [[pyrite]] or [[hematite]] for example) seem to vary in their characteristics depending where they come from, sometimes it may be down to the vein or lode where they originate, or the depth of the mine they were extracted from. This is not surprising, as they contain different amounts of impurities due to how and when they solidified. Crystallisation may take place in a series of events over weeks, centuries or millions of years, as different solutions wash through the rock.

	This, it was pointed out to me - gives the sounds made with them a particular 'terrior'.		This, it was pointed out to me - gives the sounds made with them a particular 'terrior'.

Bassett and Grylls exotic semiconductor field trip

Cornish semiconductor — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 20:13:57 GMT

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	The blue shiny bubbles in these cavities are botryoidal (or spherical) goethite. The cavities (or vugs) are mostly rectangular in the surrounding quartz, and will have been made by pyrite crystals that have decomposed into the goethite, which is essentially rust! I'm not sure what's causing the iridescence, but I think there is some chalcopyrite present which may be the source of some copper secondary minerals that might be the reason.		The blue shiny bubbles in these cavities are botryoidal (or spherical) goethite. The cavities (or vugs) are mostly rectangular in the surrounding quartz, and will have been made by pyrite crystals that have decomposed into the goethite, which is essentially rust! I'm not sure what's causing the iridescence, but I think there is some chalcopyrite present which may be the source of some copper secondary minerals that might be the reason.

			Splitting a rock that had bands of tourmaline and quartz I had a lucky find - the break was across a vein of [[hematite\|specularite]], much richer than the rock I found before but less well crystallised.

			[[File:Main2sc.jpg]]

			Although most of the crystals are very small - it's a sparkly rock, and there are some larger plates present. The field of view of this image is about 1mm, but the structure of the specularite is quite visible:

			[[File:B&G-spec2-close.jpg]]

			The resistance across most parts of this vein is in the order of 500K to 1M Ohm, and it seems to be in-between in terms of the hematite I've found previously from Tywarnhayle mine, which is not shiny at all and has no electrical conduction. Some areas do not conduct enough to get a trace, but some of the more reflective areas are - just about.

			[[File:B&g-spec2-1.png\|center]]

			Compared to the previous example I found at this location:

			[[File:Basset-grylls-spec.png\|center]]

			It seems it may have a similar curve shape (which is unusual compared to other minerals) but it has a much higher resistance. The bottom one is half the sensitivity (20mV) of the top graph (10mV) which is the maximum my oscilloscope will do. I used silver cat's whiskers as they are more conductive, but I might experiment with some other materials. I was lucky though to find the mineral I was looking for on this trip, even though it took a few days to find by going through the few rocks I picked up.

File:B&G-spec2-close.jpg

Cornish semiconductor — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 19:52:56 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:B&G-spec2-close.jpg

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File:Main2sc.jpg

Cornish semiconductor — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 19:50:59 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:Main2sc.jpg

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Marcasite

Cornish semiconductor — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:27:59 GMT

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	[[File:Marcasite.jpg\|thumb\|right\|frame\|Marcasite from Wheal Unity, Gwennap]]		[[File:Marcasite.jpg\|thumb\|right\|frame\|Marcasite from Wheal Unity, Gwennap]]
			[[File:wunity-marcasite.png\|thumb\|right\|frame\|Curve trace from this specimen]]

	* Lustre:Metallic, Sub-Metallic		* Lustre:Metallic, Sub-Metallic
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	[https://www.mindat.org Data from mindat.org]		[https://www.mindat.org Data from mindat.org]

	===Pages mentioning ~~pyrite~~===		Marcasite is chemically identical to [[pyrite]] but has a different crystal structure and is more silver in colour. It seems quite rare in Cornwall, it's taken me a long time to find any. This could be due to the fact that it's massive form is very similar to arsenopyrite, and I may have overlooked it in the past. This specimen is really nice though, very reflective and large well formed crystals. Marcasite is a mineral that forms 'hopper' crystals, stepped hollow forms similar to salt crystals.

			I had a surprise getting a curve trace from it, I was expecting it to behave like pyrite - which is easy enough to find spots with a voltage drop and quite leaky, but functioning asymmetric rectification properties. However it seemed like a very good conductor all over, and only with a lot of patience could I find the curve I captured, with a very slight notch at around -0.5V. This actually seemed like it was present in different spots, so I'm fairly confident it is a property of the crystal. I tried it with silver (which was far too conductive) and steel as a cat's whisker.

			===Pages mentioning marcasite===

	{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Marcasite}}		{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Marcasite}}

	[[Category: ACE R&D]]		[[Category: ACE R&D]]

File:Wunity-marcasite.png

Cornish semiconductor — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:17:46 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:Wunity-marcasite.png

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File:B&g-spec2-1.png

Cornish semiconductor — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 15:17:32 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:B&g-spec2-1.png

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Bassett and Grylls exotic semiconductor field trip

Cornish semiconductor — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 15:19:26 GMT

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	This location was initiated by a discovery that [[hematite]] I'd found from here previously seemed to have a low resistance in contrast to hematite from elsewhere, so I wanted to see if I could find some more usable quantities for sound making. It's also a site rich in pale brown [[cassiterite]]. I also wanted to see if there was any [[magnetite]] present here, as I'd noticed magnetic material in the stream previously when searching previously for alluvial cassiterite.		This location was initiated by a discovery that [[hematite]] I'd found from here previously seemed to have a low resistance in contrast to hematite from elsewhere, so I wanted to see if I could find some more usable quantities for sound making. It's also a site rich in pale brown [[cassiterite]]. I also wanted to see if there was any [[magnetite]] present here, as I'd noticed magnetic material in the stream previously when searching previously for alluvial cassiterite.

			Any remaining waste piles at this site have either been flattened or are completely overgrown. Due to this and the infrastructure present I only look at loose rocks on the bare surface and on the paths across the site. There is a lot of industrial process waste (slag) in the ground here, a lot of coal dust too - which coats everything and makes it look like there are crystals everywhere.

	[[File:B&g-material.jpg]]		[[File:B&g-material.jpg]]

	~~The rocks~~ collected, the black veins consist of tourmaline - which often hosts more minerals. The red rock on the left side in the middle is a piece of slag with a big bubble in and a patch green copper secondary minerals visible.		Rocks collected in this trip (there was another being cleaned in the ultrasonic bath when I took the photo). The black veins consist of tourmaline - which often hosts more minerals. The red rock on the left side in the middle is a piece of slag with a big bubble in and a patch green copper secondary minerals visible.

			Using a magnet I found an extremely magnetic, seemingly crystalline dark rock - which I was pretty happy about as it resembled magnetite. Later on testing it, it even provided weak but detectable semiconducting properties with extremely small pyramidal crystals on an exposed area. However when I tried to split it to expose more, I discovered a malleable metallic substance - which means it almost certainly originates from the smelting waste found here. It's quite possible that the crystals are in fact magnetite, just artificially created material - but that is outside of the scope of this project (we are only interested in 370 million year old semiconductors).

	Any remaining waste piles here have either been flattened or are completely overgrown. Due to this and the infrastructure present I only look at loose rocks on the bare surface and on the paths across the site. There is ~~a lot of industrial process waste (slag) in~~ the ~~ground here~~, a ~~lot of coal dust too - which coats everything and makes it look like there are crystals everywhere~~.		As is sometimes the case, it wasn't until a few days later when I started looking more closely at what I'd collected that I started to find more interesting things.

	~~Using a magnet I found an extremely magnetic, seemingly crystalline dark rock~~ - which I was pretty happy about as it resembled magnetite. Later on testing it it even provided weak but detectable semiconducting properties with extremely small pyramidal crystals on an exposed area. However when I tried to split it to expose more, I discovered a malleable metallic substance - which means it's probably a by-product of the smelting waste found here. It's quite possible that the crystals are in fact magnetite, just artificially created - but that is outside of the scope of this project (we are only interested in 370 million year old semiconductors).		[[File:B&G-goerthite.jpg]]

	~~As is sometimes~~ the ~~case~~, ~~it wasn~~'~~t until a few days later when I started looking more closely at~~ what I~~'d collected~~ that ~~I started to find more interesting things~~.		The blue shiny bubbles in these cavities are botryoidal (or spherical) goethite. The cavities (or vugs) are mostly rectangular in the surrounding quartz, and will have been made by pyrite crystals that have decomposed into the goethite, which is essentially rust! I'm not sure what's causing the iridescence, but I think there is some chalcopyrite present which may be the source of some copper secondary minerals that might be the reason.

File:B&G-goerthite.jpg

Cornish semiconductor — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 15:08:07 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:B&G-goerthite.jpg

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Bassett and Grylls exotic semiconductor field trip

Cornish semiconductor — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 14:09:09 GMT

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:09, 2 August 2026
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	The second search for exotic semiconductors was at [https://www.mindat.org/loc-224573.html Bassett and Grylls mine in Wendron]. This is a very different location to the [[East Wheal Towan exotic semiconductor field trip\|Porthtowan trip]] as it was a tin, rather than copper mine. It is well overgrown but still with quite of a lot of visible infrastructure from ore processing activities that went on here.		The second search for exotic semiconductors was at [https://www.mindat.org/loc-224573.html Bassett and Grylls mine in Wendron]. This is a very different location to the [[East Wheal Towan exotic semiconductor field trip\|Porthtowan trip]] as it was a tin, rather than copper mine. It is well overgrown but still with quite of a lot of visible infrastructure from ore processing activities that went on here.

	This location was initiated by a discovery that [[hematite]] I'd found from here previously seemed to have a low resistance in contrast to hematite from elsewhere, so I wanted to see if I could find some more usable quantities for sound making. It's also a site rich in pale brown [[cassiterite]].		This location was initiated by a discovery that [[hematite]] I'd found from here previously seemed to have a low resistance in contrast to hematite from elsewhere, so I wanted to see if I could find some more usable quantities for sound making. It's also a site rich in pale brown [[cassiterite]]. I also wanted to see if there was any [[magnetite]] present here, as I'd noticed magnetic material in the stream previously when searching previously for alluvial cassiterite.

			[[File:B&g-material.jpg]]

			The rocks collected, the black veins consist of tourmaline - which often hosts more minerals. The red rock on the left side in the middle is a piece of slag with a big bubble in and a patch green copper secondary minerals visible.

			Any remaining waste piles here have either been flattened or are completely overgrown. Due to this and the infrastructure present I only look at loose rocks on the bare surface and on the paths across the site. There is a lot of industrial process waste (slag) in the ground here, a lot of coal dust too - which coats everything and makes it look like there are crystals everywhere.

			Using a magnet I found an extremely magnetic, seemingly crystalline dark rock - which I was pretty happy about as it resembled magnetite. Later on testing it it even provided weak but detectable semiconducting properties with extremely small pyramidal crystals on an exposed area. However when I tried to split it to expose more, I discovered a malleable metallic substance - which means it's probably a by-product of the smelting waste found here. It's quite possible that the crystals are in fact magnetite, just artificially created - but that is outside of the scope of this project (we are only interested in 370 million year old semiconductors).

			As is sometimes the case, it wasn't until a few days later when I started looking more closely at what I'd collected that I started to find more interesting things.

File:B&g-material.jpg

Cornish semiconductor — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 13:40:00 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:B&g-material.jpg

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File:Marcasite.jpg

Cornish semiconductor — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 13:36:10 GMT

Cornish semiconductor uploaded File:Marcasite.jpg

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Marcasite

Cornish semiconductor — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 13:33:44 GMT

Created page with "thumb|right|frame|Marcasite from Wheal Unity, Gwennap * Lustre:Metallic, Sub-Metallic * Transparency:Opaque * Colour:Pale brass-yellow, tin-white on fresh exposures. * Streak:Dark-gray to black. * Hardness:6 - 6½ on Mohs scale * Tenacity:Brittle * Cleavage:Distinct/Good Distinct on {101}. {110} in traces. * Fracture:Conchoidal, Sub-Conchoidal [https://www.mindat.org Data from mindat.org] ===Pages mentioning pyrite=== {{Special:WhatLinksHere/Ma..."

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[[File:Marcasite.jpg|thumb|right|frame|Marcasite from Wheal Unity, Gwennap]]

* Lustre:Metallic, Sub-Metallic
* Transparency:Opaque
* Colour:Pale brass-yellow, tin-white on fresh exposures.
* Streak:Dark-gray to black.
* Hardness:6 - 6½ on Mohs scale
* Tenacity:Brittle
* Cleavage:Distinct/Good Distinct on {101}. {110} in traces.
* Fracture:Conchoidal, Sub-Conchoidal

[https://www.mindat.org Data from mindat.org]

===Pages mentioning pyrite===

{{Special:WhatLinksHere/Marcasite}}

[[Category: ACE R&D]]

List of minerals tested

Cornish semiconductor — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 09:16:23 GMT

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	* [[Molybdenite]]		* [[Molybdenite]]
	* [[Hematite]]		* [[Hematite]]
	* [[Native copper]] (resistance too low)		* [[Native copper]] (+cuprite resistance too low)
			* [[Marcasite]]

	To test		To test

ACE R&D project

Cornish semiconductor — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:31:44 GMT

29/07/26

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 ==22/07/26==
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 The [[Bassett and Grylls exotic semiconductor field trip]], possibly found [[magnetite]] and tested previously found specularite [[hematite]]. To my surprise this form of hematite from this location is a semiconductor, while material from elsewhere is not. Also a positive result from [[magnetite]].
 ==14/07/26==