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Russians and Floridians make Gem Quality Diamonds

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Like Superman squeezing a lump of coal in his mighty fist, scientists and engineers from the University of Florida and Russia are speeding up Mother Nature's handiwork through creating gem-quality diamonds with man-made heat and pressure.

Using what they describe as a remarkable new technology first developed in Russia, the team has created yellow, amber, green and colorless diamonds as large as 1.6 carats since making their first attempt about a year ago. The research, funded largely by a company that intends to sell what it calls "cultured diamonds" for jewelry, is leading to a better understanding of how to make diamonds and other crystals not only for jewelry, but also for next-generation high-speed electronics.

"Our goal has been to understand the science and technology behind growing crystals," said Reza Abbaschian, chairman of UF's materials science and engineering department.

People have been able to make gem-quality diamonds since the 1960s, but the machines were huge and the cost exceeded that of mining natural diamonds, Abbaschian said. As a result, diamond research and manufacturing efforts have centered on producing industrial diamonds for cutting tools, abrasive materials or other uses.

In the 1980s, however, a team of Russian scientists in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk developed a small, high-pressure, high-temperature machine capable of making low-cost, gem-quality diamonds.

About the size of a washing machine, the device starts with a carbon source and a shard of a real diamond called a "seed." The machine squeezes the seed with increasingly higher pressure topping out at 850,000 pounds per square inch. Other equipment heats the core to 2,000 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The high pressure and high temperatures transform the seed into a bigger diamond.

The machines require very little electricity and are not expensive to build, but the Russian researchers were unable to make them consistently produce diamonds of the same color or quality, Abbaschian said. That's where UF's research came in.

"Our objective has been to be able to control the process," he said. "Once we control the processing parameters, we can modify them to get different results."

Since the UF/Russian team attempted to make its first diamond in one of five machines imported from Russia about a year ago, the team has made more than 230 gem-quality diamonds at UF. Though the largest so far is 1.6 carats, the machines theoretically should be capable of producing diamonds up to 5 carats, Abbaschian said. It takes about 50 hours to grow a one-carat diamond, he said.

Like natural diamonds, the UF-produced diamonds are 100 percent carbon and harder than any natural substance. A typical jeweler could not distinguish between natural diamonds and the UF ones, Abbaschian said The only difference is at the atomic level; natural diamonds have paired nitrogen impurity atoms while UF diamonds have single atoms.

The Gemesis Corp., a small Florida company, plans to draw on the research to produce diamonds for jewelry at a facility in Gainesville, said Carter Clarke, chief executive officer. "What Dr. Abbaschian and his crew have done is to turn this scientific endeavor into a commercially viable enterprise," said Clarke, an entrepreneur and retired U.S. Army general. "We know now that we can produce a quality, consistent product."

The UF/Russian research team hopes to take the project far beyond gem-quality diamonds. Abbaschian said diamonds with certain properties are highly effective semiconductors capable of operating at higher power and temperatures than traditional silicon semiconductors. Natural diamonds with such properties are extremely rare, and the UF/Russian team hopes to use the machines to learn more about whether and how such diamonds might be created.

The UF team is composed of Abbaschian; Rajiv Singh, a professor of materials science and engineering; and Robert Chodelka, a research faculty member. The Russian members are Alexander Novikov, Nikolay Patrin, Vasili Kacholov and Lidia Patrina.

August 1999, Univ of Florida

In 1797 Smithson Tennant proved that diamond was an allotropic form of carbon. If diamond and graphite were the same substance, would it not be possible to transform the one which was plentiful and cheap into the other highly prized form?

For 150 years scientists, engineers and dreamers attempted to transform carbon into diamonds. The story of efforts to synthesize diamond is a tale of innovation, intrigue, error, danger, and at times downright chicanery and deception. Ultimately, it is the story of the triumph of an unlikely inventor in the face of nearly insurmountable obstacles.

Let's Make Diamonds!

In this experiment, we utilize pressure and temperature to transform graphite disks into diamond. The phase change is facilitated by a nickel-manganese powder catalyst that we put between the graphite disks. The disks and catalyst are put into a sample cup composed of magnesium oxide (MgO).

Did the Swedes Really Do It First?

Back in the 1950s the scientists from General Electric were not the only ones trying to make diamonds. Unknown to them, in a magnificent old hunting palace on the outskirts of Stockholm, the Swedish electrical company ASEA had already been funding an eccentric independent scientist called Baltzar von Platen to look into making diamonds.

In 1949 they hired a team of five scientists and engineers, headed by Erik Lunblad. The top secret project was called Quintus and Von Platen's lab became known as the Quintuslaboratorium. Von Platen was an extraordinary man who had invented the fridge. That is why ASEA took him seriously. His dream was nothing less than to invent a machine that could make Koh-i-Noor diamonds.

Like General Electric, Von Platen's team knew that high pressure and high temperature was needed to break graphite's atomic bonds. And like General Electric they had a difficult time making a machine strong enough to create those conditions. Their diamond press had a completely different design. It had six pyramid-shaped anvils, which when pressed together formed a sphere around a sample of graphite. The whole structure was encased in a strong copper jacket and suspended in an alchohol-filled tank at 6000 atmospheres of pressure. But it was highly dangerous.

If a leak appeared, it would create a high-velocity alcohol jet capable of drilling right through a hand. The whole device was capable of producing over 50,000 atmospheres and the graphite sample was surrounded by thermite which, although it could raise the temperature by 2000°C, was unstable and, combined with the alcohol, potentially explosive.

Von Platen made sure that the most valuable members of the team left the room when the press was operating. The problem for the Swedish team was that their machine was so complicated that every time they put the apparatus under pressure and something broke, it took a whole day to unravel and rebuild it. Eventually they too realised that by adding iron carbide to the graphite sample it lowered graphite's melting point and that as more and more graphite was dissolved in the metal, it became saturated. They were sure that they had cracked the theory of making diamonds.

On February 16th 1953, nearly a year before General Electric, Erik Lundblad ran the high pressure press at 83,000 atmospheres and about 2000°C for a full hour. On unwrapping the carbon parcel, he was astonished - he found diamond crystals, no bigger than grains of sand. Unfortunately for Von Platen, ASEA decided to keep the experiment a secret in case a competitor stole their secret, and the experiment was not duplicated or published - a condition of recognition for scientific inventions - until after General Electric's announcement.

As a result the world has never officially recognised that it was Von Platen's team who in fact had made the first synthetic diamond.

We insert the sample cup into a cylindrical graphite furnace. The furnace is encased in a protective zirconia cylinder, which is placed in a hole drilled into an MgO octahedron. We cap off the ends of the zirconia cylinder with two zirconia disks. These disks have small holes in them to accomodate TZM rings that contact two graphite rings that sit in the ends of the furnace. Like the graphite components of the assembly, the TZM rings are electrical conductors, and they enable us to pass an electric current through the furnace. This brings the sample to the desired temperature.

Externally, the TZM rings are in contact with the second stage anvils composed of tungsten carbide. These eight cubic anvils are primarily designed to administer pressure to the sample assembly, however, two of them are also part of the electrical circuit. The second stage anvils are enclosed between six first stage anvils will supply pressure, and also are part of the circuit. Ultimately, the force is supplied by hydraulic pumps that apply pressure to oil.

Before we turn on the electric current that heats the sample, we bring the presure up to about 60 kilobars. During the experiment, we can monitor the temperature with the optional thermocouple wires. Alternatively, we can omit these wires and use the wattage of our electrical circuit to control the temperature.