Diamonds Created in Labs Within Minutes

(Photo : Diamonds Created in Labs Within Minutes )

For most of human history, diamonds have been the ultimate luxury item. Diamonds are beautiful, rare gemstones naturally formed at about 150 kilometers deep within the earth's mantle billions of years ago. The diamond formation process usually begins after an incredible amount of heat, above 1,000 degrees Celsius, and massive pressure from rocks crush the carbon buried deep beneath the earth's surface. This process causes the carbon to crystallize into a diamond instead of graphite. It is that crystalline structure that gives diamonds their durability and immense value.  Some diamonds have also been produced as a result of meteor impacts, as long as there is the combination of heat, pressure and carbon present. 

The creation of natural diamonds requires a long time but, it has been discovered that diamonds do not have to take forever to form. Ever since 1954, man-made diamonds manufactured in laboratories have been on the rise. These labs grown diamonds are shaking up the diamond industry as they have the same physical structure, characteristics and chemical composition as a gemstone that has been mined from beneath the earth's surface. They are created without the controversy of its origins unlike the natural diamonds. Amazingly, scientists are able to create diamonds in the laboratories by subjecting carbon to heat and intense pressure. 

As manufacturing diamonds is no longer anything new, Tracy Hall of General Electric created lab diamonds using a process that mimicked the natural conditions within the earth's crust, adding a metallic catalyst to speed up the diamond growth process. The result was high-pressure, high-temperature (hpht) diamonds which were quite similar to the natural diamonds although, they were smaller and less perfect. There are several other ways lab grown diamonds have been made such as using the chemical vapor deposition method. This chemical gas process uses a small diamond as a "seed" to grow larger diamonds and the process requires a temperature of 800 degree Celsius. Although, the growth is slow, these diamonds grow large and defect-free and often with no fluorescence. They have been manufactured mainly for industrial applications.

Now, scientists in Australia have sped up the entire process of creating diamonds in the laboratory. The Lead researcher Dougal McCulloch, his team at RMIT University and his Co-lead researcher, the Professor of physics, Jodie Bradby from ANU (Australian National University) succeeded in creating these two different types of diamond in a matter of minutes for the first time without added heat. To create such beautiful gemstones in the lab setting, they used carbon set aside for the experiment to experience what is called the "shear"- a twisting or sliding force of pressure. The high-pressure applied is equivalent to the pressure mounted on the tip of a ballet shoe by 640 African elephants. They recreated the regular diamonds and the Lonsdaleite using a diamond anvil. This diamond anvil is a high-pressure device that is used to compress small pieces to extreme pressures.

Thereafter, the carbon moved to form the regular diamond and the Lonsdaleite. As carbon atoms move, they could bond together in a number of ways to form different materials including soft black graphite and hard transparent diamond. But, there is also more than one type of carbon-based material with diamond-like bonding. In a normal round diamond, atoms are arranged in a cubic crystalline structure. It is also possible to arrange these carbon atoms so they have a hexagonal crystal structure. Each carbon atom bonded makes it one of the hardest materials on earth. 

However, the regular diamonds these scientists created are the types of diamond usually found on engagement rings while, the Londaleite are mostly found at the sites of the meteorite impacts such as Canyon Diablo in the United States of America. The Lonsdaleite is named after the Irish crystallographer and Fellow of the Royal Society, Kathleen Lonsdale, who studied the structure of carbon using X-rays.

This international team from Australia, including former ANU PhD scholar Tom Sheill now at Carnegie Institution for Science, previously created Lonsdaleite in the lab only at high temperatures. But, this new discovery shows that both regular diamonds and Lonsdaleite can form at normal room temperatures by just applying high pressure. One of the lead researchers, ANU professor Jodie Bradby said, their breakthrough in creating these diamonds shows that the iconic famous superhero "Superman" may have had quite a similar trick up his sleeve when he crushed coal into diamond, without using his heat ray. 

With this nature-defying breakthrough, the researchers hope that they would be able to develop more ultra-hard diamonds for industrial use and cutting tools like those found on mine sites. They believe that any diamond creation process at room temperature is way easier and cheaper to engineer than the process needed to run at higher temperatures. Although, it doesn't mean diamond for engagement rings would become cheaper. There is much interest in the Lonsdaleite as it is 58% harder than the regular diamond. It is considered the hardest naturally occurring material on Earth. The Lonsdaleite is used for cutting through ultra-solid materials on mining sites which makes it highly sought after by miners. 

A physics professor Dougal McCulloch at RMIT who co-led the research with his team, captured solid and instant slices from the experimental samples using advanced electron microscopy techniques. They took snapshots to understand better how the two types diamond were formed with the aim of creating more of these rare, but extremely useful diamonds. The ability to make diamonds in a matter of minutes at room temperature opens up manufacturing possibilities. The next challenge for these researchers however, would be to lower the pressure required for the creation of these diamonds. Lower pressures would mean that diamonds can be made faster in larger quantities and at cheaper rates without a dip in quality.

The lab grown diamonds are considered the future of the diamond industry. As technology improves greatly, lab diamonds becomes purer, clearer, bigger and they last forever. It is almost impossible to tell lab grown diamonds apart from natural diamonds. So, those with a penchant for shiny diamonds can now purchase and wear any pretty, sparkly lab grown diamonds which are more budget friendly. Rather than wait for centuries for natural diamonds, people can opt for lab grown diamonds which can now be created in minutes!