Re: NANO: Turning onions into diamond (Physics News)
Michael Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Thu, 09 Oct 1997 19:34:09 -0400
Max More wrote:
>
> PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE
> The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Physics News
> Number 340 October 8, 1997 by Phillip F. Schewe and Ben Stein
>
> TURNING ONIONS INTO DIAMONDS. Nano-diamonds can
> be created without high pressure by squeezing carbon "onions"
> (nested buckyball-like structures) with ion beams. Graphite
> material can be made into diamond the hard way, with the use of
> high pressure (above 10^6 atmospheres), high temperature, and
> the use of catalysts. But recently scientists have been able to
> bombard carbon onions with electron beams and now ion beams
> as well, and have been able to convert the onions almost
> completely into diamonds, up to 100 nm in size. Researchers at
> the Max Planck Institute in Stuttgart (Florian Banhart,
> banhart@wselix.mpi-stuttgart.mpg.de) use a beam of neon ions
> to pelt the onions, which act like miniature pressure cells. With
> larger ion accelerators, one should be able to make macroscopic
> amounts of irradiation-induced diamond. (Experimental work:
> Wesolowski et al., Applied Physics Letters, 6 Oct. 1997; theory
> paper (Zaiser and Banhart) upcoming in Physical Review Letters;
> figure at www.aip.org/physnews/graphics.)
Hey, how about carbon onions with hollow cores filled with
deuterium/helium3? Might be a nice low power solution to fusion....When
the irradiation catalyzes the carbon shells to diamondize, there must be
some terrific compression in the heart of the nodule....
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael Lorrey
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mailto:retroman@together.net Inventor of the Lorrey Drive
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