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> diamond windows for lasers 10cm across > Diamonds are now something you can buy by the kilo, in plastic bags. I can’t wait to use diamond cookware. A pan wi

> diamond windows for lasers 10cm across > Diamonds are now something you can buy by the kilo, in plastic bags. I can’t wait to use diamond cookware. A pan with a thin layer of 430 stainless steel for induction, a wafer of diamond, and then another thin layer of stainless on top will be amazing. Almost perfect evenness over any cooktop.

pavel_lishin 2y ago
Aren't diamonds fairly brittle? I'd be worried about such a cooking pan snapping in half as I flip an omelette.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  That's what the steel is for. Steel for induction and strength. Diamond (like copper cores) for heat traversal.
chronogram 2y ago
> Thermal conductivity of natural diamond was measured to be about 2,200 W/(m·K), which is five times more than silver, the most thermally conductive metal. Monocrystalline synthetic diamond enriched to 99.9% the isotope 12C had the highest thermal conductivity of any known solid at room temperature: 3,320 W/(m·K), though reports exist of superior thermal conductivity in both carbon nanotubes and graphene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_properties_of_diamond#Thermal_conductivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_properties_of_diamond... I had no idea it was that good. I wonder why they don't make them that way then, as expensive cookware already seems to be a high margin business.
amluto 2y ago
I’m not sure how hot one would need to get one’s pan to have potential problems, but diamond is carbon, and carbon is soluble in hot steel. The mismatched coefficient of thermal expansion could also be a problem.
TheRealPomax 2y ago
This is what oil-core cookware already does. But there's only so much "heat spreading" you can do before faster conductivity does basically nothing. The thermal conductivity of steel itself becomes the limiting factor pretty quickly. That said, if they can figure out vapor depositing diamond onto stainless steel, I'd take a diamond surface over an enamel surface. Provided they can figure out how to make it perfectly flat rather than so jagged at the molecular level that literally everything sticks to it. ("wouldn't that burn? It's just carbon after all": only if you give it the cast iron pan treatment and manage to have it sit on so much gas for so long that you get it up to 700C, which would make no sense)
- amluto 2y ago
  Having contemplated pan materials a bit, it seems to me that high thermal conductivity is nice, but one really wants is even heating, and that might be best accomplished by highly anisotropic thermal conductivity. Or maybe by having a good conductor sandwiched between poor conductors.

pavel_lishin 2y ago

Aren't diamonds fairly brittle? I'd be worried about such a cooking pan snapping in half as I flip an omelette.

dragontamer 2y ago
That's what the steel is for. Steel for induction and strength. Diamond (like copper cores) for heat traversal.

chronogram 2y ago

> Thermal conductivity of natural diamond was measured to be about 2,200 W/(m·K), which is five times more than silver, the most thermally conductive metal. Monocrystalline synthetic diamond enriched to 99.9% the isotope 12C had the highest thermal conductivity of any known solid at room temperature: 3,320 W/(m·K), though reports exist of superior thermal conductivity in both carbon nanotubes and graphene. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_properties_of_diamond#Thermal_conductivity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_properties_of_diamond... I had no idea it was that good. I wonder why they don't make them that way then, as expensive cookware already seems to be a high margin business.

amluto 2y ago

I’m not sure how hot one would need to get one’s pan to have potential problems, but diamond is carbon, and carbon is soluble in hot steel. The mismatched coefficient of thermal expansion could also be a problem.

TheRealPomax 2y ago

This is what oil-core cookware already does. But there's only so much "heat spreading" you can do before faster conductivity does basically nothing. The thermal conductivity of steel itself becomes the limiting factor pretty quickly. That said, if they can figure out vapor depositing diamond onto stainless steel, I'd take a diamond surface over an enamel surface. Provided they can figure out how to make it perfectly flat rather than so jagged at the molecular level that literally everything sticks to it. ("wouldn't that burn? It's just carbon after all": only if you give it the cast iron pan treatment and manage to have it sit on so much gas for so long that you get it up to 700C, which would make no sense)

amluto 2y ago
Having contemplated pan materials a bit, it seems to me that high thermal conductivity is nice, but one really wants is even heating, and that might be best accomplished by highly anisotropic thermal conductivity. Or maybe by having a good conductor sandwiched between poor conductors.