Bob Yirka is a writer for Phys.org.
There is a structural comparison of the two diamonds. On the right, units of carbon atoms arranged in a cube shape are marked in turquoise, while units of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal shape are marked in yellow. There areIrregular structures marked in red. Credit: Hu Tang.
A group of researchers from China, Germany and the U.S. have developed a way to make a less fragile diamond. The group describes their approach to creating a paracrystalline diamond in a paper published in the journal Nature.
Diamonds are the hardest known material, but they are also fragile and can be easily cut or even smashed. Their ordered atomic structure is the reason for this. Scientists have been trying to make diamonds that are less fragile. The team is close to achieving that goal.
The way to create diamonds is to place a carbon-based material in a device where it is heated to very high temperatures and squeezed very hard. The researchers have used the same approach to create a less ordered diamond, but have added a new twist by using a bunch of buckyballs. The material was heated to between 900 and 1,300 C. The pressure used to make commercial diamonds was much higher. Paracrystalline diamonds were formed when the spheres were forced to collapse during processing.
For 10 minutes, fully sp3-bonded carbon samples will be synthesised. Credit: DOI: 10.1038
The researchers looked at the diamonds under an electron microscope to learn more about their structure. They also had their samples subjected to X-ray and atomist modeling. They found their diamonds were made of sp3- hybridized carbon. The goal of creating a less fragile diamond had been accomplished. Their diamond is a type of diamond paracrystal that is not completely amorphous, which would make it a type of glass. It has a medium-range order, meaning that its atoms are ordered over short distances but not over long ones. Diamonds cannot be cut like natural diamonds because there is no plane of atoms.
Hu Tang and his team Synthesis of paracrystalline diamond in Nature. There is a DOI titled " 10.1038/s41586-021-04122-w".
Nature journal information.
The Science X Network will be launched in 2021.
A less fragile diamond using fullerenes was created on November 28, 2021.
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