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Diamond Nanotubes Created
raxxy writes to tell us that researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne Nation Laboratory have taken the next step in nano development. Combining the process for 'growing' diamonds and the latest in carbon nanotubes has given birth to a diamond-nanotube composite. From the article: "Diamond has its drawbacks, however. Diamond is a brittle material and is normally not electrically conducting. Nanotubes, on the other hand, are incredibly strong and are also great electrical conductors, but harnessing these attributes into real materials has proved elusive. By integrating these two novel forms of carbon together at the nanoscale a new material is produced that combines the material properties of both diamond and nanotubes."
I happen to love how chemistry has been rebranded as nanotechnology. My favorite example is stain-resistant Dockers.
Ok, seriously, who thought up the name "ultrananocrystalline" ?
This article is a bit confusing. First, of course, diamond is carbon. Solid carbon exists in two forms: diamond and graphite. The carbon bonds in the diamond structure are tetragonal (I think, been a while since chemistry), each carbon being bonded to four others. In the graphite structure, each carbon is bonded to three other co-planar carbons (trigonal planar?). I believe pi bonds form above and below the plane, adding some stability.
With the graphite form, all you can get is planes, tubes, or balls. Graphite is slippery because the intraplanar bonds are strong but the interplanar bonds are weak. The intraplanar grahpite bonds are stronger than the diamond bonds in fact, which is why nanotubes are so strong. With the diamond form, you can only get solid crystalline structures.
The headline is wrong (no surpirse). These are not "diamond nanotubes", but some sort of composite of (presumably) "ultranano" diamond particles and carbon nanotubes. The article doesn't go into much detail, and I don't care to delve any deeper at this point.
I can't wait for the diamond to lose it's monatary value.
Actually, the best way for diamomd to lose its value is to convince enough people there is no significant difference between a manufactured and a natural diamond. The value of a natural diamond is based on how few flaws there are (fewer->more value). Yet, the odd thing is, how you tell a manufactured diamond from a natural one is the manufactured ones often don't have flaws.
Think of any applications tagged with a "nano" word in its marketing right now as about as what a transistor radio was in the 1950s. It's good pieces of technology, it's technical advances, but it's not that revolutionary. We might not reach any really revolutionary stage during our lifetimes, but I would say it's far more likely that we actually manage to fullfil one or two of the farfetched dreams, and a lot of the more mundane ones.
Step one. See if you can do it.
Step two. See if you can control it.
Each step is significant. Computational Physics isn't quite like REAL physics, is it? It's easier to do something on a computer than in real life.
You're just jealous because the voices only talk to me.