Rice University researchers have revealed that some microscopic diamonds last only for seconds and fade back into less-structured forms of carbon under the impact of an electron beam. Ed Billups, from Rice University, said that most of the nanodiamonds have the tendency to fade under the power of electron beam.
Billups and Yanqiu Sun, a former post-doctoral researcher in his lab, were working on ways to chemically reduce carbon from anthracite coal and make it soluble when they accidently discovered this interesting property of diamonds. Billups added that small diamonds revert back to the starting material, the anthracite, and are not stable.
Researchers said that natural, macroscale diamonds require extreme pressures and temperatures for their formation. Hydrogenated anthracite can be used to form stable nanodiamonds up to 20 nanometers in size.
With the help of an electron microscope, researchers proved that microscopic diamonds treated in coal can only survive for seconds before they revert to form less exciting carbon. They firstly noticed nanodiamonds forming amid the amorphous. "The beam is very powerful. To knock hydrogen atoms off of something takes a tremendous amount of energy", said Billups.
The two researchers discovered that most of the diamonds faded away under the power of the electron beam. Nanodiamonds are used in medical research centers to deliver chemotherapy, improve bone growth and in variety of industrial processes.
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