Scientists produce rare diamonds in minutes at room temperature
By Nick Lavars
November 18, 2020
Study author Xingshuo Huang with the device used to create the lab-grown diamondsJamie Kidston, ANU
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While traditional diamonds are formed over billions of years deep in the Earth where extreme pressures and temperatures provide just the right conditions to crystalize carbon, scientists are working on more expedient ways of forging the precious stones. An international team of researchers has succeeded in whittling this process down to mere minutes, demonstrating a new technique where they not only form quickly, but do so at room temperature.
Although the idea of creating diamonds in a laboratory in just a few minutes would be an appealing one for jewelers, rappers or those looking to pop a certain question, that’s not quite the aim of this type of research.
Artificial versions of this famously hard material could find use as new cutting tools to slice through ultra-hard materials, new kinds of protective coatings or other industrial devices where hardness is a desirable attribute. And recently we’ve seen some promising techniques developed that can turn fossil fuel molecules into pure diamonds, or make them from carbon nanofibers with the help of superfast lasers.
This latest breakthrough was led by scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) and RMIT University, who used what’s known as a diamond anvil cell, which is a device used by researchers to generate the extreme pressures needed to create ultra-hard materials. The team applied pressure equal to 640 African elephants on the tip of a ballet shoe, doing so in a way that caused an unexpected reaction among the the carbon atoms in the device.
More:
https://newatlas.com/materials/scientists-rare-diamonds-minutes-room-temperature/
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