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Forget billions of years: Researchers have grown diamonds in just 150 minutes
Did you know that 99% of synthetic diamonds are currently produced using high-pressure and high-temperature (HPHT) methods? A prevailing paradigm is that
A team of researchers led by Director Rod RUOFF at the Center for Multidimensional Carbon Materials (CMCM) within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS), including graduate students at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST), have grown diamonds under conditions of 1 atmosphere pressure and at 1025 °C using a liquid metal alloy composed of gallium, iron, nickel, and silicon, thus breaking the existing paradigm. The team discovered that diamond grows in the sub-surface of a liquid metal alloy consisting of a 77.75/11.00/11.00/0.25 mix (atomic percentages) of gallium/nickel/iron/silicon when exposed to methane and hydrogen under 1 atm pressure at ~1025 °C. High-resolution transmission electron microscope (TEM) imaging on cross-sections of the samples showed about 30-40 nm thick amorphous subsurface region in the solidified liquid metal that was directly in contact with the diamonds.
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