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Forget billions of years: Researchers have grown diamonds in just 150 minutes
- JoeAltmaier 2y agoRecently determined diamonds normally form in geysers when magma spurts up through layers of rock. Takes minutes, not billions of years. Anyway, cool article.
- squigz 2y agoThat's neat. Source?
- bicx 2y ago[flagged]
- timothyduong 2y agoGoogled “diamond geyser” and didn’t get meaningful results
- pfdietz 2y agoProbably talking about kimberlite eruptions.
- datascienced 2y agoThey died out in the 1980s in East London.
- SketchySeaBeast 2y agoWell, slightly harder to replicate under laboratory conditions. Sort of like if there was an article saying we'd figure out how to harness fusion for power and someone responded with "big deal, have you seen the sun?".
- HeyLaughingBoy 2y agoStill interesting though.
- JoeAltmaier 2y agoHey they brought it up, not me!
- Simulacra 2y agoI remember when lab grown diamonds really took off, and deBeers and others started calling their diamonds "natural"
- whatindaheck 2y agoBuy our “Rare” Organic Non-GMO Rock!
- dylan604 2y agoyou can ++ that by adding gluten free
- littlestymaar 2y agoGluten? In my diamonds? It's more likely than you think
- littlestymaar 2y ago“artificial diamonds are radioactive” (because of Carbon 14)
- petre 2y ago1ppt of C14? That's s drop in an ocean.
- littlestymaar 2y agoIndeed, that's supposed to be a bullshit marketing argument used by the diamond cartel
- dylan604 2y agoThis company should hire Lily James to make a counter commercial to the "only natural" campaign.
- Double_a_92 2y ago
- gene-h 2y agoWhat's more important is that they demonstrated making diamond at 1 atm and lower temperatures(1025 C). This is compared to ~50,000 atm and ~1500 °C diamond is conventionally made at. The diamonds they made were very small, but this is a new process and optimization might enable it to make bigger diamonds.
- asah 2y agoobvious reference! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Diamond_Age
- kloch 2y agoI just had an idea that may be my worst technology idea ever. Assemble some unstable atoms (that decay into carbon) into the desired cubic structure. When they decay you have a diamond. The problem with this is that if it can decay fast enough (even with outside neutrons) it will be too hot (pun intended), and if it decays slowly enough it will take too long. Depending on the source isotopes and process it could also result in a radioactive diamond! Also, the heat of the process would have to not change the crystal structure. However, some day when we master quarks and the weak interaction we might be able to do this quickly and safely.
- Ellipsis753 2y agoWhy would this be easier than just making a diamond?
- dylan604 2y agowhat part of "I just had an idea that may be my worst technology idea ever." did not make sense to you?
- fch42 2y agoHmm; so the only thing that can "easily" decay into the stable forms of carbon - C12 and C13 that is - is N13 (β+ to C13 with "minutes" half-life). Nothing decays into C12, since N12 or O12 would have half-lifes so short as to make them "doubtful" isotopes. But Nitrogen wouldn't crystallise in a diamond lattice; nevermind the crystal absorbing "heat" from the radioactive decay disturbing positions temporarily, there's just no way to arrange Nitrogen and Carbon atoms into similar locations of a crystal lattice. This sort of "transmutation" isn't even science fiction, it's only a dream (follow your dreams but think a few times before trying to make money off them)
- ars 2y agoLeaving aside the decay part of things, carbon makes a crystal structure of a diamond, other materials don't. So they would refuse to assemble into the right shape.
- xhkkffbf 2y agoIt's pretty impressive what you can buy on eBay with the words "CVD Diamond" in the title. As best as I can tell, they're chemically identical. (Modulo honesty on eBay, of course.)
- Buttons840 2y ago6 CT diamond for $600, not bad.
- jl6 2y agoSo what kind of cool/useful things could we make out of diamond if diamond were suddenly very cheap?
- vonzepp 2y agoDiamond with nitrogen valance centers are used as fluorescent markers. If a current passes close they change their emission spectrum. Some workon this as a method to measure neurons firing. So maybe that use case expands. Also quantum applications with diamond.
- NegativeLatency 2y agoA phone screen or camera lens that's harder to scratch? Diamond bearings? IDK if the technique can create such a large crystal though.
- Iulioh 2y agoWe don't actually want a phone screens that's harder to scratch. Mostly because it means that it will break more.
- tithe 2y agoAnything with an edge: knives, drill bits, saws, scissors...maybe the last razor blade you'll ever buy!
- krisoft 2y agoIf you make them cheap enough we can make windowpanes out of diamond. This is the titular conceit of Neal Stephenson's novel the Diamond Age. In that fictional futuristic word almost anything can be manufactured in nanotechnological "material compilers". And according to the novel if you can do that, at scale it is cheaper, and easier to build transparent panes for windows out of diamond than glass because the chemical structure is simpler.
- jameshart 2y agoDiamond Age also posited ‘aerostats’ - macroscopic diamond structures that are structurally solid, but contain nothing but vacuum, enabling them to be used to generate buoyancy in air. Not sure how realistic the material physics of those is.
- bsder 2y agoI thought the real issue is that diamonds aren't uncommon (despite DeBeers) so weird manufacturing simply isn't profitable.
- TacticalCoder 2y agoOn that subject... I love gemstones. I just love them. But "real" aka "natural" ones tends to be very pricey. Anyone know of reputable brands/places/sellers where I can buy synthetic / lab grown diamonds / sapphires / ruby etc. at a much cheaper price than "natural" ones?
- impossiblefork 2y agoTairus is probably reputable. I've bought anything from them though. Sometimes I look at their page of roughs and unusual crystals.
- ohmyiv 2y agoMy ex used to buy from best cut gems for her jewelry side hustle. She seemed pretty happy with them, but I dont know how the prices compare. There's also a subreddit about synthetic gems that has a vendor directory in their sidebar. I think the sub is synthetic gemstones.