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The history of the diamond industry is marked by conflict, unregulated labor and monopolies. Not only that, but these sparkling gemstones require billions of years in the deep recesses of the Earth under immense pressure and heat to be compressed before they are ready to be turned into jewelry or industrial machinery – hence their extreme rarity and price.
As a result, scientists have strived to find a viable method of creating diamonds in a lab that is cheaper, faster, and more ethical than traditional diamond hunting.
Today, researchers at Australian National University (ANU) and RMIT University have developed a method to create diamonds in minutes at room temperature, a feat never before achieved.
“Natural diamonds typically form over billions of years, about 150 kilometers deep in the Earth, where pressures and temperatures are above 1,000 degrees Celsius,” said Professor Jodie Bradby of the School of ANU research in a press release.
Using a new method they describe in their study published in Small, the researchers synthesized two types of diamonds: the regular type used for jewelry and a type of diamond called Lonsdaleite which is theoretically harder than cubic diamond but not is found only in graphite meteorites.
To create the diamond, the glassy carbon is compressed at extreme pressures. Glassy carbon is a form of carbon without crystals which, when compressed in diamond anvil cells, can form diamond veins.
Diamond has been synthesized in laboratories since H. Tracy Hall carried out the first commercially successful synthesis in 1954, but the process is incredibly expensive and requires both intense pressure and extremely high temperatures. However, by changing the way the pressure is applied, the researchers found that high temperatures may not be necessary after all.
“The twist of the story is how we apply pressure. In addition to very high pressures, we also allow the carbon to undergo something called ‘shear’ – which is like a twisting or sliding force. that it allows the carbon atoms to fall into place and form Lonsdaleite and regular diamond, ”Professor Bradby said.
The process has not yet been shown to produce significant amounts of diamond. The results suggest that diamond and Lonsdaleite can be synthesized at room temperature, but there is still work to be done to improve the process. Both materials are extremely useful in a variety of industries, from slicing through ultra-hard materials to biomedical applications that include drug detection and delivery. If these could be produced in sufficient quantities, this could have massive implications.
“Lonsdaleite has the potential to be used to cut ultra-strong materials at mine sites,” said Professor Bradby.
“Creating more of this rare but super useful diamond is the long term goal of this work.”
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