U.S. Develops New Technology for Producing Artificial Diamond Coatings

American scientists invented a new method of producing synthetic diamond cheaply and quickly in August 2003, which is expected to make diamond coatings more widely used in industry.
Although the size of the diamond particles produced by this new technology is no more than 10 nanometers, it is impossible to make diamonds of gem grade with it, but it can reduce the production cost of diamond coatings, and is easy to manufacture. Special requirements of the workpiece, such as diamond-coated tools, brake pads and so on.
The composition of diamond is pure carbon. So far people have been able to remove silicon from silicon carbide to make nano-sized diamonds. However, the prior art needs to be performed under extremely high pressure or by high-energy plasma spraying, which has high production cost and low output.
Scientists at Drexel University in Texas recently reported in the British journal Nature that they successfully manufactured nanoscale diamonds under atmospheric conditions. Researchers placed silicon carbide in a mixture of chlorine and hydrogen and heated it to 1000 degrees Celsius. When chlorine reacts with silicon, the remaining carbon atoms will recombine themselves to form a variety of nano-scale carbon materials, including diamond crystals, graphite, carbon nanotubes, and hexagonal diamonds. Hydrogen allows this conversion to proceed stably.
The hardness of the extracted carbon film is basically equivalent to that of diamond, and its special structure can make it have many uses of properties, such as permeable, conductive, and the like. This not only can reduce the manufacturing cost of traditional diamond coating products, but also hopes to expand the application range of diamond coatings, such as flat panel displays, molecular sieves, and the like.