Now we've finally reached our 3rd classification, the metalloids. Metalloids have characteristics of both metals and nonmetals. Because of this, we call them semi-metals or semiconductors. We're going to say here that the metalloids lie on an imaginary staircase starting from boron (B) to astatine (At). If you come back up here to our periodic table, remember those in green represent our metalloids. So, from boron all the way down to astatine, they lie on the staircase. Above the staircase, and below the staircase, we have germanium (Ge) and antimony (Sb). Here we have 7 metalloids. They act as a border with the metals lying to the left and most of the nonmetals lying to the right. Remember, on the periodic table, hydrogen is in the top left corner, but then all the rest of the nonmetals are on the right side. Most of the nonmetals, except for hydrogen, which is on the far left over there.

Now, here it says, "Which of the following is a metalloid" for this example question? Out of the choices that we saw up above, go back up, we have boron, silicon, arsenic, tellurium, astatine, germanium, and antimony. These are the names for these different types of metalloids. Again, we'll get to names and symbols later on, but realize these are our 7 metalloids. Now, based on our options, only 'A' fits; we have 'Sb', 'Pb', and 'C'. The other 4 are not metalloids.

'Si' stands for silicon. You might have heard of that term when it comes to Silicon Valley. So we know that Silicon Valley exists in California. It's a hub for major tech companies in the country. It's a place of innovation and technology, but Silicon Valley isn't named after those tech companies. In actuality, it's named after original settlers there who were developing silicon chips. That's where the name Silicon Valley comes from. These silicon chips are incredibly important because they're found in so many of our technology. They're found within our computers, our laptops, even our phones. The reason for this is because silicon is a metalloid. It works as a semi-metal or semiconductor. So, it's the ideal type of element that can function properly within all these pieces of technology.

Again, you might have heard of Silicon Valley, you've definitely heard of different tech companies, you know what microchips are, so this is a real-day application that is based in chemistry, and that's going to happen from time to time. You might think something is boring but then realize that it has a real-world use that you benefit from every day. So just remember, when it comes to the classifications of the periodic table, we have our metals, our nonmetals, and, of course, our metalloids.