How Science Harnesses The Incredible Power Of Diamonds | Naked Science | Spark

diamonds 4 billion years old and they still Dazzle us but these rocks aren't just for show anymore hidden inside are powers that could change your life the future of diamond is very exciting and opens up what many of us have been calling the the new diamond age to reach that shining future scientists have to outdo nature and build a better Diamond the new synthetic diamonds that's a technology that's going to take us places we've never been before it's a dazzling challenge can science do the unnatural and make a super diamond [Music] diamonds are like no other substance they're four times harder than any mineral on the planet they resist corrosion the best are completely transparent and they conduct heat some can conduct electricity what you have is a material such as Diamond that has a a fantastic range of unique properties and it's the combination of these unique properties that makes diamonds special if science can harness the powers of these Stones it could revolutionize our lives from the microchips in our phones to the machines that explore space they'd be super durable they'd last forever they'd be resistant to heat and cold and the other kinds of extremes it's said diamonds are forever but they aren't most contain natural flaws flaws that can't withstand extreme heat and pressure to transform technology science must do something unnatural create the ultimate diamond in the lab nature is the guideline and the question is can we improve upon on it the race now is to to produce a super diamond a super diamond would have all the properties of a natural diamond but could be manufactured in any shape or size most of all they would mimic the properties of the rarest gems like this [Music] one the Hope Diamond perhaps the world's most perfect natural diamond it's kept behind bombproof glass in the Smithsonian institution in Washington DC at 45 and A2 carats this gem is over a 100 times bigger than the average diamond ring it's one of the largest and most valuable diamonds ever discovered worth around 2 $50 million but that's not all this gem has some unusual properties that highlight what makes Diamond so [Music] special Jeffrey post the curator of the national gem collection is researching this Stone in the lab he demonstrates a phenomenon that set the Hope Diamond apart from most others we can take an ultraviolet light and we can expose the Hope Diamond to the ultrav light and we'll leave it on for about 10 or 15 seconds also notice that one of the white diamonds on the outside fluoresces very bright blue and so now we're going to turn the room lights off and I'll turn off the the ultraviolet light and we can see the intense orange glow the property called phosphorescence for years this glow was attributed to a curse cast Over The Diamond when it was stolen from an Indian temple centuries ago but post isn't superstitious so here you've got supposedly a cursed Diamond that glows this blood red color well you know that's a great story in itself but then the scientist in many of us says well why does it do that post and his team investigate using a spectrometer an instrument that analyzes wavelengths of light the spectrometer shows that the Hope's distinct Hue comes from two colors aqua and red three the team can now Identify two chemical elements in the diamond Boron and nitrogen suddenly now I understand what is going on when this diamond is phosphorescent Boron makes the stone blue when combined with nitrogen the stone shines red chemicals not a curse make the Hope glow it's it's not the red glow that excites scientists but the element that makes the Hope blue Boron Boron does more than color diamonds it also allows them to conduct electricity blue diamonds because of the Boron present in them are in fact semiconductors of electricity which makes them very different than other diamonds that are pure carbon pure white diamonds are electrical insulators try to pass a current through them and nothing happens but blue Boron Rich diamonds like the hope are electrical conductors the extra atoms of boron interact with the existing Diamond atoms letting an electrical current pass through but all diamonds not just blue diamonds have another useful property they transfer heat better than any material [Music] known if science could make synthetic diamonds that both conduct electricity and transfer heat they could revolutionize a critical component of daily life the semiconductor semiconductors are the vital component in nearly every electronic device device in transmitting electricity to the Precision control of microchip technology for the past 50 years these devices have been made almost exclusively from Silicon but silicon has a major drawback the more electricity it carries the hotter it gets the result most silicon chips require complex cooling technology if they exceed about 300° F they'll shut down one of the huge hurdles that are facing manufacturers is that they have to be able to remove the heat away from these electronic systems you know think of your own laptop at home as you're operating it it's gets hot and so this becomes a big problem right now they're using Metals mostly to do that but diamonds in fact are much better conductors of heat than metals are with the discovery that blue diamonds transfer heat and conduct electricity scientists can imagine the unimaginable a world Beyond silicon a world where everything from your cell phone to a spacecraft runs on diamonds diamonds can carry 30 times more power than silicon and operate three times faster and they're so efficient at transferring heat they could run a computer at speeds that would melt a silicon chip they also resist temperatures over 1, 800° F to be able to code Electronics with diamond or use pieces of diamond as the heat sinks would certainly offer a whole new direction for the manufacturer of even smaller more uh more powerful electronic devices despite their eye-catching Sparkle Diamond's real potential has been overlooked for centuries the possibilities for technology are almost endless but there's one problem diamonds are rare and expensive natural semiconducting diamonds like the hope are thousands of times more rare and they don't come in the right shape or size for industrial use so scientists are trying to create a synthetic super diamond with all the powers of a natural blue diamond but in a size and shape of our [Music] design to to succeed in creating a super diamond scientists must first discover how Nature Made hers and for the answer they look to the stars for scientists to create a synthetic super diamond they must first Get Back to Basics and investigate the ingredients of a natural diamond for all all their Rarity diamonds are made from one of the most familiar elements on Earth carbon carbon is so fundamental it forms the basis of everything around us even we are 18% carbon it's so common it's estimated that our planet contains over 100 million billion tons of it but carbon doesn't originate on Earth it comes from long ago and far away a star on the brink of death a red giant astrophysicist Neil degrass Tyson studies carbon's dramatic formation well the universe is born without any carbon our sort of birth ingredients are hydrogen and helium and just Trace Amounts of lithium so carbon comes later carbon is forged in the cores of stars this red giant star once looked like our sun but as it ages it grows over a thousand times bigger instead of glowing white hot it glows red as it reaches the end of its life it's running out of fuel its core is now composed almost completely of helium in its death throws a nuclear reaction in the core breaks down helium and fuses it together in a new configuration carbon dying red giants are the universe's carbon factories eventually the star explodes in a white hot flash so strong that billions of tons of carbon are flung out into the farthest reaches of space what happens is the star collapses and the entire core in response to this collapse rebounds and explodes Titanic explosion we call a supernova and its guts are scattered everywhere and it's it's a spectacle it's so much of a spectacle that you can see these stars explode halfway across the universe in time the vast cloud of debris from the explosion is pulled into orbit around a new star as this debris spins it clumps together over millions of years these clumps grow and planets begin to form this is how our solar system and our planet itself was born and it's why Earth holds the raw ingredient for diamonds very deep in huge quantities carbon for scientists hoping to create a super diamond a problem the form carbon usually takes is weak carbon in its most familiar form is graphite great for pencils but far far too soft for High-Tech products Bob Hazen research scientist at Washington DC's Carnegie Institution is an expert on carbon and diamond formation you know it's amazing diamond and graphite are made out of the same element carbon but they're so vastly different graphite has these planes of weakness and you can see how every one of these black dots the carbon atoms are connected to three other carbon atoms in a triangle but in Diamond every carbon atom is now connected to four adjacent and this trellis this network this lattice so diamond is strong in every direction that's the difference for scientists hoping to create a super diamond making it hard will be tough they have to recre create a diamond's lattice-like [Music] structure to do that they have to figure out how nature turns basic carbon into a dazzling Diamond scientists are on a quest to figure out how to make a super diamond their search begins here South Africa Diamond capital of the world diamonds were discovered in these rocks in the 19th century hundreds of thousands have been mined here but only recently did scientists learn how they actually formed Professor Steve haggardi is an expert on how diamonds are created diamonds were a real mystery in terms of their origin they were founding clusters so you found one diamond and by golly there would be others to be found as well so that led to the notion that the process in which the diamonds were brought to the surface was possibly deep diamonds formed deep within the Earth in an area called the mantle the layer between the Earth's crust and its superheated core down here intense pressure changes the molecular structure of carbon by crushing its atoms together and forcing them into a new lattice-like structure under extreme pressure and temperatures carbon becomes Diamonds the temperatures have to reach about 1500° centigrade and the pressures about 50 kobs that's 2,700 de F and the weight of over 4,000 grown men standing on your foot the journey from a dying star to a diamond mine is almost complete 100 miles still remain between their Source in the mantle and the Earth's surface luckily they're fast-tracked to the surface by a substance called kimberlite kimberlite is a rock it's the host Rock to Diamonds even though the diamonds do not form in the Rock it's the transporter kimberlite is a volcanic rock that forms deep within the Earth as it moves to the surface it creates a carrot-shaped pipe filled with molten rock mantle fragments and diamonds when it breaks through the crust it erupts in small but violent volcanoes I like to think of these as volcano of opportunity these rows they picked up the diamonds from their safe deposit boxes deep in the earth about 200 km down and then were explosively erupted at the surface magma builds up a mound of volcanic material that eventually cools and hardens hidden within the Rock are diamonds incredibly rare perfectly formed crystals surrounded by [Music] kimberlite rarer still are blue Boron Rich diamonds like the Hope less than one in 100,000 Form This Way 4 billion years from a dying star to the Earth's surface yet in a matter of days scientists aim to turn raw carbon into Super diamonds in order to produce anything of that nature it would require extraordinarily high temperatures and pressures it turns out that it's not very easy to transform graphite into Diamond the attempt began in the 1950s when General Electric launched project super pressure [Applause] their goal to create the first synthetic diamond they develop machines to crush graphite at nearly 800,000 lb per square in and heat it above 2500° F replicating the very forces in the Earth's mantle it takes 5 years and millions of dollars but finally in February 1955 GE announces they've done it the world's first synthetic industrial Diamond over 50 years later just outside Johannesburg South Africa a lab called element 6 continues the Quest for synthetic diamonds following ge's lead they synthesize diamonds on a mass scale not for jewelry but for heavy industry scientist Richard Bodkin is a pioneer of industrial Diamond research we have Banks and banks of presses that are capable of producing diamonds in no fewer than 45 minutes to see such technology room after room is absolutely amazing the diamonds they produce start as a highly pure form of graphite powder it's baked inside a pressure chamber between 2500 and 3600 de F effectively you're stacking 20 sedan motor cars on it and heating it between 1400 and 2,000 de C the result is a diamond 50% harder than those found in nature and element six can produce handfuls these diamonds have revolutionized the drilling and Mining Industries the friction from drilling into hard rocks like Granite generates high temperatures that can damage ordinary drills but Diamond tip drills transmit heat away from the drill tip oil and gas drilling benefits immensely from diamonds simply because we can drill faster and deeper with diamonds one shortcoming industrial diamonds are small the next challenge is to create diamonds large enough to be printed with circuit boards or shaped into other high-tech devices it's a challenge that the Sarasota Florida company gemesis is tackling using a special machine they actually grow large diamonds they start with a seed a microscopic Diamond either natural or artificial and Surround it with graphite it's a delicate process that shows how hard it is to create large diamonds in charge of the process is Chief Operating Officer Clark mccuan we take graphite and we put it along with a an actual diamond seed into an environment that amul Ates what happens within the Earth these two forms of carbon the diamond seed and the graphite are placed inside the chamber where they're heated and crushed by a powerful hydraulic press as you apply that temperature and pressure what happens is that graphite turns into individual carbon atoms and those atoms permeate down and it finds that diamond seed and it attaches to it it it acts as a template as the graphite melts it releases carbon atoms which crystallize on top of the diamond seed molecule by molecule the diamond grows what nature does in 4 billion years they do in 4 days the result a large artificial gem up to three times larger than the seed with this breakthrough scientists can now consistently make large diamonds but the real breakthrough that scientists need is Yet to Come gemesis can't grow diamonds in the shapes needed for High-Tech use we haven't gotten there yet but we're constantly working on improving the process and making larger and better quality diamonds scientists are trying to create a large diamond with all the properties of a real diamond but in shapes and sizes not found in nature from circuit boards to scalpel blades the uses could be endless as scientists struggle to Perfect The Diamond a clue hurdles toward Earth from an unlikely [Music] place after years of research scientists discovered how to make gem siiz diamonds one hurdle remains to making a true super diamond making them in any shape and size science needs a breakthrough and it comes from space these strange objects look like burnt Stones they've been found in South America and Central Africa tests reveal a surprise the stones are actually diamonds black diamonds these are two of the famous black diamonds called carbonado because of the uh similarity to Charcoal carbonado has been known for centuries but how it forms remains a mystery only recently has its potential value to science [Music] emerged George harlo of the American Museum of Natural History is investigating what makes carbonado so special carbonado is a conundrum because it it it doesn't have the characteristics that we associate with diamonds that formed in the mantle on Earth diamonds originating in Earth's mantle form under immense pressure and high temperature so they're Compact and dense not black diamonds using a microscope scientists find they're riddled with holes it's got a lot of void space in it now deep within the Earth the void would have to be filled with something well the something ain't there normal diamonds contain very little void space as they form deep in the earth they're crushed into a single Crystal carbonado seems to form differently unlike normal diamonds it's composed not of one Crystal but Millions all linked [Music] together scientists conclude carbonado formed not under high pressure like normal diamonds but low pressure but just where does carbonado come from once again research leads to the last gasp of a Dying red giant the current theory for the origin and Genesis of carbonado is that these the small diamonds formed in Supernova explosions haggardi believes the vacuum of space explains carbon's unique structure the diamonds were hot at one Diamond bashing into the other and they finally became glued to form a larger Diamond during its explosive formation specks of mineral dust are also trapped making the large Diamond appear black the diamonds are then transported to Earth by a meteorite when the meteorite hit it showered diamonds so this must have been a truly amazing site with carbonado diamonds being liberated from the meteorite on impact it's not just the large size of space diamonds that Fascinate scientists carbonado has another advantage over regular [Music] diamonds its multicrystal structure makes it not only larger but tougher it's almost impossible to cut not so a natural diamond although it's one of the hardest materials known it has its weaknesses you know Diamond's incredibly hard but it can be broken along certain planes they're called cleavage planes and it just happens that there's certain directions in Diamond where there are few fewer strong bonds and that's the direction the diamond opens a natural single crystal diamond will split cleanly where its chemical bonds are weakest by following this cleavage plane a gem cutter can split the stone perfectly for scientists this weakness in single crystal diamonds is a fatal flaw diamonds that might fracture aren't durable enough for High-Tech [Music] use the key to making a tough super diamond lies in replicating carbonado multicrystal structure their theory of how carbonado forms in the the vacuum of space yields another breakthrough a whole new way to make diamonds the space Diamond have now taught us that in fact we don't need pressure at all that's going be done in a vacuum carbonado sets the stage for a new kind of super diamond one tougher and larger than ever that can be made into multicrystal shapes Apes not found in nature the key is using low pressure to simulate the vacuum of space how do you make a diamond in a vacuum when diamonds only stable at high pressure and the way you do it is by fooling the carbons into being so energetic so excited that when you cool them down they find a more stable configuration and the first one they find is diamond and they don't go any farther this process is called chemical vapor deposition cvd for short it begins with a tiny diamond seed sealed inside a vacuum chamber slightly below atmospheric pressure the chamber is heated to 3, 600° F then methane a carbon bear bearing gas is pumped in then hydrogen the gases are bombarded with microwaves which agitates them forcing the hydrogen and methane molecules to collide this process releases a cloud of carbon atoms that settle on the seed and gradually the diamond grows this was the seed they started with 24 hours later it doubles in size at the US Naval research laboratory in Washington DC James Butler is taking this cvd process to the next level they're growing not single stones but wafer thin Diamond sheets one of the materials we grow starts with a non-diamond material for example a silicon wafer onto which we put a very thin layer of these little diamond seeds think about shaking salt onto the kitchen table and having a whole bunch of salt crystals there and then put them in the cvd environment and they will grow and as they grow together they bump into each other and they become this Mass so it's all diamond but with many different grains of different orientations each diamond crystal bonds to another to form a mesh of crystals across the Waf from less than a 50th of an inch thick they can be made up to 8 in wide the shape of the template determines the shape of the diamond sheet perfect for making a wafer to replicate silicon they're much tougher than natural diamonds they conduct electricity and resist extreme heat these are true super [Music] diamonds Super diamonds have been filmed with image intensifiers that show how much more efficient diamonds are at conducting heat than the copper traditionally used in electronic components the left plate is made of synthetic diamond on the right copper the two plates are placed in ice and attached to a thermal image intensif fire which records heat as it travels through an object as the diamond plate on the left shows it conducts heat faster than copper up to five times faster it's this unparalleled quality that puts the super in super diamond scientists are excited for the first time time they have a material that could challenge the domination of silicon microchips made from Diamond Wafers can run electronic devices at higher speeds and with more power without overheating faster smaller and more efficient razor thin computers long lasting cell phones and picture perfect TV screens I think the future of diamond is very exciting particularly I think cvd Diamond opens up what many of us have been calling the new diamond age electronics are only the beginning today scientists can make diamonds in shapes and sizes for uses that could revolutionize [Music] tomorrow researchers at the Carnegie Institution in Washington are trying to solve some of science's biggest mysteries from how compressed gas can conduct electricity to how microscopic life can survive in extreme conditions these investigations need extremely high pressures which they create using a powerful Vice called a diamond Anvil cell it squeezes an an object between two Diamond tips creating a tiny environment of high pressure between [Music] them it can recreate forces as Extreme as pressure in the center of the earth for the Carnegie team's experiments this wasn't extreme enough but when they push the pressure higher they hit a snag the diamond shattered Hemley director of the geophysical lab decided to upgrade the Anvil by making an ultra hard super diamond well our group has been very interested in using diamond for high pressure experiments for many many years and we basically needed to take this to the next level we needed better Diamond stronger diamond larger Diamond than could be provided by Mother Earth or from uh conventional processes to create his super diamond Hemley used a version of the cvd method to speed up the growth rate the team then exposed the crystals to a high pressure high temperature treatment to further Harden them the result another leap forward for super Diamonds the diamond not only grew many times faster it also grew bigger 15 carats in just 6 days they created a stone one3 the size and 50% stronger than the Hope Diamond a gem that took nature billions of years to forge the new super diamond was so tough it broke hemley's hardness gauge when used in the diamond Anvil this new super diamond proed the Breakthrough he needed this can produce pressures that are millions of times the pressures found at the surface of our planet now he can simulate forces so extreme they've never been studied before like those deep in the Earth's mantle where pressures reach up to 1300 kilobars that's nearly 20 million PBS per square inch this improved instrument lets Hemley study some of our biggest questions like is there life in outer [Music] space hemley's team takes two common strains of bacteria including eoli they place them in a liquid and crank up the super diamond anvil the liquid turns into a dense form of ice under the intense pressure most of the bacteria are destroyed but incredibly one% survive if bacteria can survive these harsh conditions maybe life exists in outer space perhaps on other planets [Music] thanks to Super diamonds created under low pressure diamonds will reshape the future super diamonds will change Communications everywhere especially on the battlefield in constant use and battered by the elements equipment like radios often break down in the harsh conditions of [Music] combat but imagine if they were made of super diamonds already they can be shaped into tiny sound transmitters called nanoresonators making vital radios and computers more robust and efficient they can vibrate up to 100 billion times per second to create the highest quality sound yet achieved yet they're tough as Nails all this from a diamond a thousand times smaller than the width of a human hair it's not just soldiers who will benefit Diamond resonators will eventually be used in everyday devices like cell phones allowing longer talk time and Crystal Clear reception the same Sparkle that attracts us to Diamond Jewelry reveals another of its Secrets its Clarity it's transparent to light it slows down light that passes through it as light enters a diamond the dense carbon structure slows it down to less than half its normal speed as it reflects inside the stone the light appears to hang around longer you can actually Force light to completely internally reflect and come out at some other angle that's why diamonds look radient cuz light comes in from One Direction comes out another it makes you think it's generating its own light but it's not all it did was redistribute the light coming in from other angles it's remarkable now you know why diamonds sparkle the unique Optical Clarity of diamond the perfect material for Hightech Optical uses diamond is transparent across a huge spectrum of light from ultraviolet to infrared it's the only substance through which light passes virtually unaltered from Super diamonds NASA can make super hard super clear windows the possibilities for super diamonds are endless soon you may find a diamond everywhere from your desk to your Galaxy the future of diamond we're just seeing the very beginning of it and uh I mean the the the stars are are the uh the limit when it comes to what we're going to be able to do with diamond in the future nature took billions of years to perfect the diamond now we make super diamonds in days tougher bigger and better the new synthetic diamonds that's a technology that's going to take us places we've never been before it's going to take science new directions it's going to allow us to do things we could never do before so the natural diamond we treasure that as an object the synthetic diamond that will give us knowledge like steel transistors and silicon synthetic diamonds could revolutionize [Music] life Welcome to the age of super [Music] diamonds [Music]

Channel: Spark

Views: 91,954

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary, diamonds, geology

Id: HPlI67cY1v4

Length: 46min 3sec (2763 seconds)

Published: Fri May 10 2024