A brand new technique of constructing diamonds doesn’t require excessive stress 

Diamonds in nature famously kind beneath immense stress in Earth’s mantle. However a brand new laboratory method permits diamonds to skip the squeeze. 

The commonest technique for producing artificial diamonds, referred to as high-pressure and high-temperature development, or HPHT, requires round 5 gigapascals of stress, just like that within the higher mantle the place diamonds kind naturally. With this method, carbon dissolved in liquid steel varieties diamonds at temperatures round 1400° Celsius. 

However diamonds will be grown at atmospheric stress in a liquid of gallium, iron, nickel and silicon uncovered to a fuel of carbon-rich methane in addition to hydrogen, scientists report April 24 in Nature. The method additionally required decrease temperatures than HPHT: 1025° C. The addition of silicon specifically appears to kick off the preliminary levels of development, permitting a tiny little bit of diamond to nucleate, says bodily chemist Rodney Ruoff. From there, the remainder of the crystal can develop.

The demand for diamonds isn’t nearly gems. Scientists can use diamonds for every thing from sensing magnetic fields to looking for new subatomic particles (SN: 9/19/22; SN: 6/17/19). The brand new technique might make producing such supplies simpler. “The syntheses needn’t rely upon costly or sophisticated gear,” says Ruoff, of the Institute for Primary Science Middle for Multidimensional Carbon Supplies in Ulsan, South Korea.

One other method to supply diamonds within the lab, known as chemical vapor deposition, or CVD, takes place at low pressures, with a vapor of carbon-rich fuel being deposited on a floor. Not like CVD and HPHT, the brand new method doesn’t make use of a diamond “seed,” an preliminary little bit of diamond to kick off the expansion. 

CVD and HPHT are extensively used within the jewellery business. It stays to be seen whether or not the brand new method will make diamonds destined for bling.