Artificial diamonds - now available in extra large

Discussion in 'General Science & Technology' started by cosmictraveler, Nov 18, 2008.

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  1. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Artificial diamonds - now available in extra large

    Diamonds are a girl's best friend, they say - and soon they could be every girl's best friend.

    A team in the US has brought the world one step closer to cheap, mass-produced, perfect diamonds. The improvement also means there is no theoretical limit on the size of diamonds that can be grown in the lab.

    A team led by Russell Hemley, of the Carnegie Institute of Washington, makes diamonds by chemical vapour deposition (CVD), where carbon atoms in a gas are deposited on a surface to produce diamond crystals.

    The CVD process produces rapid diamond growth, but impurities from the gas are absorbed and the diamonds take on a brownish tint.

    These defects can be purged by a costly high-pressure, high-temperature treatment called annealing. However, only relatively small diamonds can be produced this way: the largest so far being a 34-carat yellow diamond about 1 centimetre wide.

    Microwaved gems

    Now Hemley and his team have got around the size limit by using microwaves to "cook" their diamonds in a hydrogen plasma at 2200 °C but at low pressure. Diamond size is now limited only by the size of the microwave chamber used.

    "The most exciting aspect of this new annealing process is the unlimited size of the crystals that can be treated. The breakthrough will allow us to push to kilocarat diamonds of high optical quality," says Hemley's Carnegie Institute colleague Ho-kwang Mao.

    "The microwave unit is also significantly less expensive than a large high-pressure apparatus," adds Yufei Meng, who also participated in the experiments.

    The new technique is so efficient that the synthetic diamonds contain fewer impurities than those found in nature, says Meng. "We once sent one of our lab-grown diamonds for jewellery identification, it wasn't told apart from natural ones," she says.


    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16036
     
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  3. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I wonder what would the properties of diamond glass be?
     
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  5. Hercules Rockefeller Beatings will continue until morale improves. Moderator

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    ..or made from tequila.
     
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  7. PreverseBeing Registered Member

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    ...I thought jewellery identification relies on the supposed fact that natrual diamonds are impure and that synthetic diamonds are too pure and too perfect to be natrual.
     
  8. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Depends on the size of a diamond. A large, imperfect diamond will be cut up into smaller ones, along dislocation lines and flaws, so they are not present in the final smaller stones.
     
  9. PreverseBeing Registered Member

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    Ok, that makes more sense, thanks.
    I'll just hope that the synthetic diamonds won't murder the existing natrual diamond industry.
     
  10. astrogirl15 Registered Member

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    why do you care if it gets murdered? its a manopolized industry anyways.. lets stick it to africa

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  11. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    I would hope it does kill the mined diamond industry, no more blood diamonds, also I want diamond windows.
     
  12. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    The industry is bent anyway. Large players (and we all know who) buy up mines and close them, and choke the supply of diamonds to artificially inflate prices.

    I hope this procedure becomes commonplace, and the arse falls out of the Diamond market.
     
  13. MacGyver1968 Fixin' Shit that Ain't Broke Valued Senior Member

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    Wow..I bet Debeers is shitting their pants.

    I wonder if diamonds would make better lenses? What other applications could you use large super pure diamond for...other than some ridiculously gaudy bling? ..if cost was no longer an issue.
     
    Last edited: Nov 18, 2008
  14. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    :bravo::roflmao:
     
  15. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    Then there will be "blood gold" or "blood emeralds" or other bloody things that will be in the news.
     
  16. kevinalm Registered Senior Member

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    IIRC, one of the 'dream' uses would be as a replacement for silicon in semi's and ic'. Anyone want a cpu that would operate up to 500 F?

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  17. synthesizer-patel Sweep the leg Johnny! Valued Senior Member

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    hollow it out and make a motorbike out of it

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  18. jpappl Valued Senior Member

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    Solar energy panels !

    There was a guy who created diamonds working for GE, not only could he make them cheap but could make them in different colors. Debeers caught wind of it and the guy ended up getting fired. I think GE had to pay him some big money for wrongful dismissal but they or debeers ended up with the patent.
     
  19. Asguard Kiss my dark side Valued Senior Member

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    wouldnt dimond windows on things like the space shuttle be a better idea than keeping glass

    further more you could get dimond drill bits which rather than just being coated in dimond chips could be made compleatly from the start from dimond and would there for last better.

    Dimond bullet proof vests, hell even dimond BULLETS

    of course the draw back of this would be the compleat distruction of dimonds as an item of value
     
  20. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    aaaaah, no, there will just be good old cocaine.
     
  21. Tristan Leave your World Behind Valued Senior Member

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    Do you all realize that Diamond may be strong, but at the cost of being fragile in other ways?

    Yeah, its hard. Only Diamond can cut Diamond... but If you heat a diamond with a blow torch and then drop it in water, it will shatter. If you lay one on a table, and take a hammer to it, it will shatter.

    Diamond would not necessairly be a good thing to use as a space shuttle window, or even bullet proof vests. You need something strong AND flexible. It needs to absorb energy...


    Sheesh.
     
  22. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Most people don't know diamonds are common on Earth, the value is kept artificially high by a cartel run by De Beers.
     
  23. phlogistician Banned Banned

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    Many of the applications you see for Diamonds just won't be any good.

    Diamond drill bits would shatter, as they twist.

    Diamonds, being carbon, BURN in air if they reach a high enough temperature, so using them as glass in the space shuttle a really bad idea.

    Diamond is brittle, which is why it can be cleaved to make facets in cut stones, so it would be NO USE as bullet proofing.

    As bullets? Again, no, to impart maximum kinetic energy, bullets deform on impact. Diamonds won't do that. To penetrate armour, they need to do a variety of things, and it's more likely the diamond will vaporize and combust, as the kinetic energy is turned into heat through deformation, and the carbon reaches flashpoint. Also, diamond isn't very dense, it would make a crappy projectile, carry less kinetic energy, and be affected by cross winds far more than the same volume of lead, lead being several times more dense.
     
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