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Questions tagged [diamond]

'diamond' is a crystalline solid form of the chemical element Carbon. It has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of any known natural substance. DO NOT USE THIS TAG FOR QUESTIONS RELATED TO DIAMOND SHAPE. Use the geometry tag instead.

Diamond is the hardest known natural substance on earth. Diamond also has the highest known thermal conductivity of any known natural element. It is composed of a single chemical element Carbon covalently bonded to each other in a three dimensional pattern. Each Carbon atom bonds with four nearest neighboring carbon atoms forming a tetrahedral shape. It is extremely rigid and therefore a very few substances can contaminate it.

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Melting diamond and cool down as diamond

Is it possible to melt diamond? And if possible while let it cool will it became diamond again?
sugunan
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Why is diamond transparent while graphite is not?

Diamond and graphite are both made of the same atom, carbon. Diamond has a tetrahedron structure while graphite has a flat hexagonal structure. Why is diamond transparent while graphite is not (at least not with more than a couple of layers)?
Marijn
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Why doesn't diamond glow when hot?

In an answer to this SE question, the respondent explains that heating a perfect diamond will not cause it to glow with thermal blackbody radiation. I don't quite follow his explanation. I think it comes down to: there is no mechanism for diamond…
garyp
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Will a diamond break if I hit it with a hammer

I was having this discussion with my friend about the hardness of diamonds. I would like to know if a diamond will break or not if hit with a hammer. Different sources across the internet mention different things. Some say it will and some say it…
Yashbhatt
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Could someone explain this phase diagram to me?

I'm a litte confused by this diagram. What does the "Diamond + metastasble Graphite" and "Graphite + metastable Diamond" regions mean? I mean at room temperature and Pressures, carbon is in the Graphite region, and yet diamonds don't normally turn…
blademan9999
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"A diamond baseball bat would be very easy to break compared to a wood baseball bat." Is this true? If so, why?

In a previous question, someone mentioned that a diamond baseball bat would be very easy to break compared to a wood baseball bat. Is this true? If I could create a baseball bat that is made out of 100% pure, solid diamond without any defects --…
Steven Sagona
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Diamonds are not forever?

It is frequently stated that although graphite is the more stable allotrope of carbon at STP, the activation energy of the diamond-to-graphite transformation is so high that our diamonds will never spontaneously turn into black dust. Some sources…
Martin Kochanski
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Why does hot (molten) glass glow, while diamond does not?

I have read this question: Why doesn't diamond glow when hot? This is because of Kirchhoff's law of thermal radiation. The corollary from it is that emissivity of a material is equal to its absorptivity. Does any material glow, under appropriate…
Árpád Szendrei
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Can a strained diamond actually become conductive?

According to about.com, "The electrical resistivity of most diamonds is on the order of 1011 to 1018 Ω·m" (source) However, according to the diamond band diagram, it seems that under a certain range of tensile strain, a diamond becomes conductive,…
Sparkler
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Why can undercoordinated lattices not be described with isotropic pair potentials?

Is there a simple physical argument why lattice structures involving 3 and 4 fold coordinations as in graphite and diamond are not stable in radially symmteric pair potentials? I read in the bond order potential molecular dynamics literature as…
YoussefMabrouk
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How can the heat capacity of diamond be so low?

I'm taking an introductory thermodynamics course, and according to my professor, the heat capacity of an ideal gas is $\frac{3}{2}R \approx$ 12.5. Since ideal gases don't have any attraction between molecules, every bit of energy put into the system…
Armaan
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Band formation in diamond

Why is it that in the band diagram of diamond does the sp3 hybridised orbital split into two forming valence band and conduction band? I thought that these sp3 hybridised orbital forms 4n bonding and 4n antibonding orbital accommodating 8n electrons…
Grace
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Is there a theoretical upper limit for how hard something can be? Harder than diamonds?

Is there a theoretical upper limit for how hard something can be under "normal circumstances" (i.e., on the surface of Earth or similar or in the empty space)? Something like absolute zero/infinity on the Moh scale.
d-b
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Why is it that other diamond lattice elements not as strong?

For example, Germanium and Silicon with both Mohs(scratch) hardness of 6 and 7 respectively. But they also have the same tetrahedral structure. I've seen some answers such as, (a) The covalent bonds between carbon atoms produces the hardness, this…
fermionicplants
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Transforming the diamond structure Raman tensor to [111] crystal orientation

I'm writing my physics bachelor on the Raman scattering effect in solids. I'm trying to evaluate the scattering intensity response to varying polarization angle. This is the well known linear polarized Raman measurement. The intensity is given…
Eslam Aboelfadl
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