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The Diamond Age
bigner writes "The new diamond age is here and will revolutionize the computer industry. Diamonds show amazing potential as a superior semiconductor."
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Read the article.
This company makes the material. It's similar to the guys who make silicon wafers now. They won't design chips, they will just sell carbon to both Intel and Motorola (or whoever is around at the time).
They're not really rare. As the article states, Debeers has a stockpile and controls the supply ruthlessly with tactics that makes Microsoft look like reasonable.
They pretty much ignored an antitrust judgement, have been held responsible for untold exploitation of black African minors, and have been accused of much worse. In the article, one of the interviewees recalls and indirect death threat and treats the journalist with suspicion, fearful that he is an agent of Debeers.
Yes, ladies, we know they look pretty. They may also be more responsible for more terrorism than drugs, certainly more than Bush/Ascroft would like you to beleive.
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Karma: Oldschool
Read the article. One of the cartel guys is so scared by this tech that he was white-faced and shaking by the end of his meeting with Clarke. Another diamond guy told Linares that his father's research was an excellent way to get a bullet in the head.
DeBeers is only where they are because they've had a lock on the supply, and imitations up to this point have been less than convincing. Now we have the real thing, man-made. Especially the vapor process. In fact, the vapor process produces even more perfect diamonds than Mother Nature. DeBeers *should* be scared, since the tech is now in North America and they can't do a damn thing to stop it. In fact, the whole conflict diamond problem is undoubtedly going to be a hindrance to DeBeers trying to badmouth these things. Just think of the upcoming PR:
General Clarke: "These are made by the same processes, and are real carbon diamonds. The structure is the same, it is real. It just took us a lot less time to make"
DeBeers: "But *our* diamonds come from our mines in Africa. Surely they're worth more because of that"
General Clarke: "How many children were killed because of those African diamonds?"
DeBeers: "...but, but, we're sure everyone follows the Kimberly accords..."
General Clarke: "Of course. Because bloody military juntas are so concerned with outside trade agreements, right?"
yo.
Look into Canadian diamonds.
Go get a periodic table and a description of how Semiconductors work.
Silicon isn't really a proper metal. Like carbon, silicon is on the borderline between metals and non-metals. Silicon forms crystals, just like carbon. It's because they form crystals that they function as semi-conductors - Silicon conducts quite poorly on it's own. Only when doped does it become a conductor. When doped with the appropriate substances semi-conductors have either extra valence electrons in the crystalline structure or "holes" where there should be, which serve to carry the current. Doping diamond should work the same way - Same column of the table, same number of valence electrons, similar crystalline structures.
Why?
Interesting article, but it's missing some of the point. There are two issues here: fabricating substitute "gem" diamonds for jewelry, or fabricating diamond for the semiconductor industry..., or diamond coatings for wear resistance, biocompatible implants, etc. These are an entirely different beast.
CVD diamond, even in with the best of reactors, is limited by growth rates. Working with thin films is, at the moment, the only way to go. You can also only get single crystal diamond by growing on a previously obtained single crystal diamond- as they mention in the article. This is seriously limiting, and they don't mention the growth rates in the article. 5$ a carat is such a BS guess it's not even funny.
CVD diamond grown primarly on Si wafers, and on some specially coated Si wafers, is the way diamond (which is polycrystalline, with different grain sizes giving very different diamond properties) is going to be used in the near to far future. Our group just got a RD 100 award (not that I give that much creedence to those, but it's recognition) for coating 4" wafers with diamond, and we're going up to 8" next year.
The biggest problem is with the electronic properties of the diamond. Sure, it's a great thermal conductor. But... ahem.. it also needs to be a great electical conductor- and have decent mobilities- to be used in actual electronic devices. You can dope diamond with boron to make it p-type, but the conductivity isn't all that high, and the mobility even less, in polycrystalline diamond due to defects and grain boundaries, etc. We've made n-type nanocrystalline diamond with nitrogen, which shouldn't work, but does, and we're still trying to figure out the conduction mechanism.
Thin film diamond is really going to shine for a few particular uses- MEMS (it has extremely low friction/stiction/wear), bio-devices, chemically resistant devices, etc. In all of these cases, even conductive MEMS driven by diamond electronics, borderline and not great electronic properties are fine. (Think Si TFT's for your comptuer display- it's not single crystal Si, obviously, but still has a great potental for other uses.)
There is no way to dope single crystal n-type. People are trying very hard to do this. Some people think they have gotten phosphorous to work slightly, but the growth is very difficult, and the work hard to reproduce. (our doping probably occurs in the grain boundaries, and we think we have actual grain boundary conduction vs. traditional doping processes.) That is a far bigger barrier than just growing BIG DIAMONDS. This article is just some PR spin press release that doesn't really say anything. (As I get more jaded, I see that that is all they really ever are). Just because you can't make Intel processors out of diamond doesn't mean you can't utilize diamond for a large number of exciting applications.
Remember: bigger is not better. Although I personally do like the idea of freaking out DeBeers.
Pull me a diamond boule, and I"ll be impressed.
-j, postdoc at your favorite national lab.
Luster is a function of the cut (or shape) of the gem and its refract index. A diamond has a refract index of around 2.42, while moissanite has a refract index 2.67.
The difference can be shown fairly easily in a ray-tracing program: just build a model in a jewel cut and set it to have varying refract indices, rendering for each one. Be aware that you'll have to set the 'number of bounces' as high as you can get it to see the full effect...
My little research on the topic says which is 'better' depends on lighting (moissanite is slightly colored, which shows in certain lights) and taste.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
It's actually quite a good question.
I can tell you specifically why diamond is not organic with a quick definition that organic chemistry is the study of compounds containing carbon. Diamond is a giant molecule of elemental carbon, so it is firmly inorganic.
Although that definition isn't perfect, some compounds such as carbon dioxide are also considered inorganic.
Some people say that organic chemistry requires a molecule to possess carbon-hydrogen bonds - but that is wrong as well. Tetrachloromethane (CCl4) - dry cleaning fluid - is firmly organic but with no hygrogen atoms to be found in the molecule.
Which leads me to conclude that organic chemistry is the study of carbon compounds - except carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and carbides.
Doubtless there are further exceptions.
Best wishes,
Mike.