Delta II rocket launching 

the Mars Exploration Rover, 

Spirit, June 10, 2003.

Gallium-arsenide and gallium-nitride technologies 

are used in advanced high-performance radiofrequency mobile devices, including third- and 

fourth-generation smartphones, fiber optic networks, 

wireless local area networks, global positioning 

systems, and defense and aerospace applications.

Printed on recycled paper

Ga

[Ar]4s2 3d104p1

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As part of a broad mission to 

conduct research and provide 

information on nonfuel mineral 

resources, the U.S. Geological 

Survey (USGS) supports science 

to understand

•	 How and where gallium 

resources form and 

concentrate in the 

Earth’s crust

•	 How gallium resources 

interact with the environment 

to affect human and 

ecosystem health

•	 How trends in supply of 

and demand for gallium 

differ in domestic and 

international markets

•	 Where future sources of 

gallium might be found

Why is this information important? 

Read on to learn about gallium 

and the important role it plays 

in the national economy, in 

national security, and in the 

lives of Americans every day. 

Gallium is a soft, silvery metallic element with an atomic number of 31 and the chemical 

symbol Ga. The French chemist Paul-Emile Lecoq de Boisbaudran discovered gallium in 

sphalerite (a zinc-sulfide mineral) in 1875 using spectroscopy. He named the element “gallia” 

after his native land of France (formerly Gaul; in Latin, Gallia).

The existence of gallium had been predicted in 1871 by Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian 

chemist who published the first periodic table of the elements. Mendeleev noted a gap in his table 

and named the missing element “eka-aluminum” because he determined that its location was one 

place away from aluminum in the table. Mendeleev thought that the missing element (gallium) 

would be very much like aluminum in its chemical properties, and he was right.

Solid gallium has a low melting temperature (~29 degrees Celsius, or °C) and an unusually 

high boiling point (~2,204 °C). Because of these properties, the earliest uses of gallium were in 

high-temperature thermometers and in designing metal alloys that melt easily. The development 

of a gallium-based direct band-gap semiconductor in the 1960s led to what is now one of the most 

well-known applications for gallium-based products—the manufacture of smartphones 

and data-centric networks.

How Do We Use Gallium?

Gallium is used in the microelectronic 

components of a wide variety of products. The 

components include GaAs (gallium arsenide), GaN 

(gallium nitride), and CIGS (copper-indium-gallium 

selenide) direct band-gap semiconductors. GaAs and 

GaN are able to change electricity directly into laser 

light and are used in the manufacture of lightemitting diodes (LEDs), laser diodes, photo detectors, 

and solar cells. These devices are important for the 

aerospace and telecommunications industries. They 

are also used in the production of highly specialized 

integrated circuits, semiconductors, and transistors 

to help regulate the flow of electricity. These 

components are necessary for high-performance 

computers and smartphones (cellular telephones that 

have advanced personal computer-like functionality). 

Power transistors made with GaN operate at higher 

voltages and with a higher power density than those made with GaAs. The types and numbers of 

products that use advanced GaN-based transistors are expected to increase in the future. CIGS was 

developed to make lightweight and durable thin-film photovoltaics that have a high absorption 

coefficient; CIGS has potential applications in the manufacture of efficient solar cells. Gallium 

is also used in some unusual applications. Thermal convection in liquid gallium is used to study 

aspects of planetary and astrophysical magnetohydrodynamics, and because of its silvery color 

and ability to form metal alloys, gallium is used to make brilliant mirrors.

Where Does Gallium Come From?

The abundance of gallium in the Earth’s crust is small—generally less than 19 parts per 

million. Gallium does not exist in elemental form in nature, and the few high-gallium minerals 

that do occur are too rare to serve as a primary source of the element. Fortunately, gallium occurs 

in low amounts in many minerals where it substitutes for elements of similar size and charge. 

Gallium is found in small amounts (~50 parts per million) in many bauxite deposits, and it occurs 

in zinc deposits in about the same amounts as in bauxite deposits. Currently, gallium is obtained 

mainly from mining and mineral processing of bauxite ore for aluminum, although some gallium 

is also derived from the processing of sphalerite ore for zinc. Gallium is also recycled from scrap 

generated in the manufacture of GaAs- and GaN-based devices. 

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Geological Survey

Fact Sheet 2013–3006

March 2013

USGS Mineral Resources Program

Gallium—A Smart Metal
Bauxite is the primary ore from 

which most of the world’s gallium 

is produced. Small amounts of 

gallium are distributed within the 

aluminum minerals that make up 

bauxite, which is the main source 

of aluminum metal. The U.S. penny 

in the photograph is for scale.

The gallium crystals shown in 

this photograph grew in a tank 

of liquid gallium. The drop in the 

foreground fell off the crystal as 

the liquid slowly cooled below a 

temperature of about 29 degrees 

Celsius. Photograph courtesy 

of Afshin Yaghmaei, Simulated 

Planetary Interiors Lab, University 

of California, Los Angeles.

How Do We Ensure Adequate Supplies of Gallium for the Future? 

Text prepared by Nora Foley and Brian Jaskula.

The USGS Mineral Resources Program is the principal Federal 

provider of research and information on gallium and other nonfuel 

mineral resources. For more information, please contact:

Mineral Resources Program Coordinator

U.S. Geological Survey

913 National Center

Reston, VA 20192

Telephone: 703–648–6100

Fax: 703–648–6057

Email: minerals@usgs.gov

Home page: http://minerals.usgs.gov

For More Information

• On production and consumption of gallium:

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/

commodity/gallium/

• On gallium deposit models:

http://minerals.usgs.gov/products/depmod.html

Worldwide Supply of and Demand for Gallium

In 2011, China, Germany, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine were the leading producers 

of gallium from raw ore. The principal producers of refined gallium, which includes 

gallium production from raw ore plus gallium that is recovered from impure gallium 

metal, were China, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Gallium 

was recycled from new scrap in Canada, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, 

and the United States. No primary production of gallium has taken place in the 

United States in recent years; instead, most of the gallium used in the United States 

comes from imports of gallium metal and GaAs wafers.

World demand for gallium is expected to remain high as demand for Ga-based 

products continues to increase. GaAs demand is increasing owing to the rapid growth in the popularity of feature-rich, applicationintensive, third- and fourth-generation smartphones. Demand for GaN-based products is expected to increase in the cable television 

transmission, commercial wireless infrastructure, power electronics, and satellite markets. The LED industry is also expected to 

increase demand for GaAs and GaN-based technologies that are used in the backlighting of computer notebook screens and flatscreen computer monitors and televisions, and in general lighting applications.

U.S. bauxite deposits are mainly subeconomic resources that are not generally suitable for 

aluminum production owing to their high silica content; consequently, recovery of gallium from these 

deposits is unlikely. Some domestic zinc ores have the potential to be significant sources of gallium. 

The United States meets its current and expected future needs for gallium through imports of primary, 

recycled, and refined gallium as well as domestic production of recycled and refined gallium.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) estimates that world resources of gallium in bauxite 

exceed 1 billion kilograms and that a considerable quantity of gallium could also be present in world 

zinc resources. Most of the gallium in bauxite resources cannot be considered to be available in the 

short term, however, because much of the bauxite will not be mined for many decades. Also, only a 

small percentage of the gallium metal contained in bauxite and zinc ores is economically recoverable 

using current separation methods. Larger amounts of gallium could be recovered from these ores if 

more efficient and improved extraction and separation methods are developed in the future.

To help predict where future gallium supplies might be located, USGS scientists study how and 

where identified aluminum and zinc resources are concentrated in the Earth’s crust and use that knowledge to assess the likelihood 

that undiscovered resources containing gallium also exist. Techniques to assess mineral resources have been developed and refined 

by the USGS to support the stewardship of Federal lands and to better evaluate mineral resource availability in a global context. 

The USGS also compiles statistics and information on the worldwide supply of, demand for, and flow of gallium. These data are 

used to provide information for domestic and international policymakers and decisionmakers in the public and private sectors.

Did you know... Gallium is one of the formal temperature reference points of the International Temperature Scale 

 established by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.

Did you know... The NASA Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity are equipped with gallium-

 arsenide solar panels.

Ga

[Ar]4s2 3d104p1

31

69.723