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."

Comments

Good news

[archen]

Hopefully this will break the diamond cartel permenantly. I can't wait for diamonds to become like salt. Hard to believe the romans actually paid soldiers with salt. Now everyone will have diamonds cheaply, and western culture can wonder about all that brainwashing they've endured thinking that investing in a diamond ring was worth it.

Read!

[dave1g]

I read this story earlier today, and i can already tell that 90% of the above posters havent read it.

If they did they would know that these are manufactured diamonds using relativly new processes that allow for some large diamonds.

Being manufactured they are rather cheap. The jewel grade stones will be sold at about half fo what debeers is selling thier diamonds for.

The big falacy about diamonds is that they are scare. They are, in fact, in great abundance but most of the world's supply is controlled by Debeers. They trickle diamonds onto the market keeping the price artificially high.

To summarize.

1. We can now make great looking diamonds for cheap. (2 different methods of doing so)
2. They can be formed into anything from gemstones to about 4 inch wide(so far) diamond wafers.
3. There are 2 forms of doping in the process of creating the diamonds that allows for + and - parts (couldnt think of the word) that means we now have the building blocks of logic for diamond based chips.

I knew this was coming

[core plexus]

As a geologist working for a company that explores mostly for metals, I recently worked on a diamond project here in Alaska. I've known for a long time that the whole diamond scam (see DeBeers) would come crashing down eventually, and have been warning that we (the company) should not be getting too excited about diamond finds, because unlike metals, diamonds are controlled by a monopoly and are useful for few applications. Not to mention the fact that diamonds aren't as rare as the DeBeers Cartel would like everyone to believe. This might finally put a crimp on the so-called 'blood diamonds', and I'll look for emeralds, gold, and platinum-group metals instead.

-cp-

Re:Quality of computer

[DumbSwede]

Before 1886 there was no cheap process for refining aluminum. Aluminum was considered a precious metal and was even incorporated into things like the Royal Crown Jewels.
(some aluminum facts)

I read the dead-tree version of this article last week. The prediction is not just making small gems and computer chips, but huge, pure, industrial quantities soon. Despite anything that De Beers tries to do, if chemically and structurally identical diamonds can be made, natural diamonds will collapse in value. Aluminum certainly didn't retain its value.

As to the price of chips made from diamonds, market forces will determine the fair price (and drive costs inexorably downward.) The major cost of a Silicon-based chip is not the Silicon, but the processing needed to make it function. The same will soon be true of Diamond based chips. Undoubtably there will be a steep learning curve in making diamond chips, so Silicon has at least a decade of safely being number one. Gallium Arsenide is considered superior to Silicon in many ways, but has only unseated Silicon in certain high frequency, low power, telecommunication applications. Diamond-based chips will probably infiltrate niche markets first, where price of fabrication is not a major deterrent.

Gemstones as investments.

[Jennifer E. Elaan]

Gemstones make *AWEFUL* investments. Changes in the market can cause the loss of the value of anything you have, and seldom do they increase in value.

Diamond is the only gem that's still worth anything (thanks to De Boer's monopoly). With the advent of the internet, virtually anyone can order other gems directly from Thailand and the like. Sapphire and ruby prices have crashed as a result. You can get a 1 carat pigeonblood ruby for just $10 or so nowadays.

And that's not counting advances in synthetic gemstones. Hydrothermal processes for sapphire, ruby and emerald have made it virtually impossible to detect a good quality gem (most synthetic sapphire and ruby is still grown the old way though, which is easier to detect).

I personally have a roughly 10+ carat white sapphire heart and a top blood red ruby of about the same size, both synthetic. I paid about $10 each for them, including the .925 sterling silver pendant setting.

In context, natural gems like these, a few decades back, would be worth tens of thousands of dollars.

Re:Cool

[killthiskid]

Ok, and god damn. A bit of research turns of very interesting things. It is amazing to me how things like this can sit out there a fester... all the info is out on the net. This Wired article should not be a surprise. Every night I sit at my computer with a fat pipe connection and try to think of good things to type into google. This one passed me and apparently most of us by;

From the Wired article, this is (as far as I can tell) Joshua Davis sitting in Antwerp, handing three diamonds made via chemical vapor deposition.

Van Royen reluctantly hands the diamonds back. "You have something that nobody else in Antwerp has." he says. "You should be careful - somebody might jump out of the shadows with a mask on." He leans in conspiratorially: "If you want to know how important these diamonds are, talk to Jim Butler with your Navy. He is the man."

Another name. Only mentioned once in the aricle. One of many names. I wanted to know more. A series of google searches. the best one.

Success.

The first one that really catches my interest. a research paper. A quote:

Carbon in the form of diamond, DLC (Diamond Like Carbon), carbon nanotubes and conjugated polymers is attracting increasing interest as an electronic material. This is because carbon possesses some interesting and unique properties. In its diamond form it has good thermal conductivity, high elastic modulus and good wear resistance. It is also possible through doping to turn diamond into a semiconductor leading to the possibility of devices that can operate at temperatures of several hundred degrees. Carbon can also form nanotubes, long tube like structures a few nanometers in diameter that can be conducting or semiconducting. Single walled carbon nanotubes are incredibly strong and posses the thermal conductivity of diamond. Carbon nanotubes are being investigated as interconnects in ICs because they are immune from electromigration. The small diameter of nanotubes is being exploited as thin film emission cathodes: a brush of parallel carbon nanotubes orientated normal to a phosphor display. Carbon nanotube technology is being used to create a supercapacitor - a KilloFarad capacitor the size of a drinks can! Carbon also forms long molecules, these polymers are being investigated as fast switching TFT (Thin Film Transistors) and organic light emitting diodes. Flexible polymer displays are already in production. It is hoped this research will lead to the lowest cost per area display technology.

For god sacks, that is a long quote, please go read the whole thing.

If I thought it couldn't get better, the www proved me wrong.

Our research is focused on understanding and manipulating interface chemistry to control, with atomic precision, interfaces between types of organic and inorganic materials. We refer to this area as "interfacial architecture" because, like an architect designing a building, we are interesting in understanding the physical properties of molecular building-blocks and using this information to design, build, and understand more complex structures with precisely-tailored functional properties. We are especially interested in interfaces that link organic/biological molecules with inorganic materials that are used in microelectronics, such as silicon and diamond.

emphasis mine. He states Jim Butler as a reference. Uh. Not only do we have the future of microprocessor technology, we have a people researching as a method to connect it to living flesh.

PBS information

[mesterha]

PBS had a special on this back in 2000. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/diamond/

It looks like the big breakthrough is the CVD technique. The old Russian design had the problem of letting in too much nitrogen and creating only yellow diamonds. They have improved the technique but it is still harder to make clear diamonds. I read that they were going after the colored market since colored natural diamonds are more expensive. Plus it must be easier to add color with new elements than remove all the yellow. (They can add different elements to get different colors.) Expect the market in colored diamonds (especially yellow) to get cheap. (Kobe should have waited...) Of course the real volume is in clear diamonds. Hopefully the CVD technique can make cheap clear diamonds. I know they said $5 a carat, but I wouldn't trust Wired.