in all seriousness though, GaAs is just fine ... UNLESS YOU EAT A BUNCH OF IT.

It is not inherently toxic, although it can release arsenic and arsine acids, which are why there are controls in place for safe handling. It's not a bag of flour. It's an industrial material.

What does that mean?

1./ GaAs can be hazardous.

It means if you're at work one morning in the UConn labs and get really bored, deciding to go suck on the tailpipe of the molecular beam epixaxy and vacuum chamber equipment for the rest of the day would probably be a bad idea.

But part of me wants to say if whoever is stupid enough to decide they can't hold themselves back from fellating a tray of POET chips, well ... they deserve what they get.

It's just Darwin being proven right.

2./

Potentially dangerous things have controls for a reason.

Consider.

Why are there brakes on your car?

So you can go FASTER.

That's why.

GLTA,

R.

PS:

if you're so inclined, quick googling lends us the MSDS...

http://www.crystran.co.uk/userfiles/files/gallium-arsenide-gaas-msds.pdf

and how about the CDC's take on things...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8452098