“Diamonds are forever”! But they also take almost “forever” to be formed naturally… In addition to the time, they also require extreme pressure and temperature conditions for billions of years under the earth’s surface. Change the temperature and pressure slightly, and you could end up with other crystalline forms of pure carbon such as soft graphite and thin fullerene, or the more well-known non-crystalline form of black coal! In fact, the steady zone where diamonds are formed are at least 150km below the Earth’s surface in certain geographical locations only.
The rarity of diamonds along with their optical (light-related) properties and strength are what makes them so valuable. Diamonds are the strongest natural material known to mankind, and its applications lie much beyond jewelry alone. This has led to the development of technology to make synthetic diamonds, which are used in almost all non-jewelry industry applications today such as drill bits, cutting tools, grinding wheels, wear-resistant bearings, heat sinks for computer processors, and even high-temperature windows. Unfortunately, this technology is not very energy efficient and consumes a lot of electricity to achieve the high temperatures and pressure necessary to grow the synthetic diamonds.
So, it is indeed a break-through development when researchers at Australian National university and RMIT University, Melbourne, been able to make the diamonds without any additional heat – at room temperature! To achieve this, the researchers took inspiration from Nature, yet again. Diamonds have been known to form near the Earth’s surface during meteorite impact – a piece of space rock that enters the Earth’s atmosphere and falls to the surface. Interestingly, there are many instances of “extraterrestrial” diamonds also being known to scientists, where diamonds have been formed in our solar system due to the impact between two fast-moving asteroids. The researchers studied all the conditions present during these “diamond-making collisions” and observed that the sliding stress (pressure) during the event was critical to the diamond formation. By re-creating these critical asteroid impact conditions in the labs, the researchers were able to make a diamond at room temperature within a matter of just 3 minutes!
The possibility of being able to make good-quality diamonds at normal temperatures is a huge leap towards making the process of synthetic diamond-making more environment friendly. Of course, this is only one half of the problem solved. The next problem to be resolved would be to find a way to reduce the necessary pressure conditions, which would not only make the synthetic diamonds much cheaper but would also reduce the carbon footprint of the technology. And eventually, there is the possibility of being able to order a diamond along with your burger at a drive through restaurant!
