D iamonds are hard. Humans have known that for ages. This hardness encompasses not only mechanical hardness, but also chemical, electrical, optical, and structural hardness (1). Diamonds are hard to cut, and shaping them requires a complex technology. Diamonds are chemically inert and, because of this, they are not processed chemically. Diamonds are resistant to electrical fields and, as an ele...

High pressure high temperature (HPHT) synthesis of crystallographically well-defined boron doped diamond (BDD) microparticles, suitable for electrochemical applications and using the lowest P T (5.5 GPa 1200 °C) growth conditions to date, is reported. This aided through use a metal (Fe–Ni) carbide forming catalyst an aluminum diboride (AlB2) source. The latter also acts as nitrogen sequester, r...

High pressure and high temperature (HPHT) conditions in geothermal wells have necessitated the need to develop thermally stable drilling mud systems combat potential complications. This is because fluids degrade under HPHT due effects. study therefore aims establish optimum concentration of a cationic surfactant that would successfully modify surface silica nanoparticles thereafter, evaluate pe...

This special issue is intended to serve as a multidisciplinary forum covering broad aspects of the science, technology, and application of synthetic and natural diamonds. This special issue contains 12 papers, which highlight recent investigations and developments in diamond research related to the diverse problems of natural diamond genesis, diamond synthesis and growth using CVD and HPHT tech...

Here we report that the equation of state (EOS) of Mo is obtained by an integrated technique of laser-heated DAC and synchrotron X-ray diffraction. The cold compression and thermal expansion of Mo have been measured up to 80 GPa at 300 K, and 92 GPa at 3470 K, respectively. The P-V-T data have been treated with both thermodynamic and Mie-Grüneisen-Debye methods for the thermal EOS inversion. Th...

Understanding materials with dimensions down to a few nanometers is of major importance for fundamental science as well prospective applications. Structural transformation and phonon-confinement effects in the nanodiamonds (NDs) have been theoretically predicted below 3 nm size. Here, we investigate effect size on surface chemistry, microscopic structure, Raman scattering high-pressure high-tem...