Diamond is the hardest of all natural materials. The hardness of any given material is usually determined by pressing a carefully shaped indenter onto a surface under a load, resulting in a permanent plastic deformation. The indenter must be at...
Read moreDiamond is transparent from the UV (225 nm) to the far infrared. Only minor absorption bands exist resulting from two-phonon absorption between 2.5 and 6.5 µm. This makes diamond an ideal material for multispectral optical applications. Diamond’s optical properties are...
Read moreDiamond is unmatched as a thermal conductor. It is informative to compare the thermal conductivity of diamond to that of other materials with which it may be used or with which it may compete. Polycrystalline diamond films of good quality...
Read moreDue to the inherent transparency of diamond across a wide wavelength range, optical methods of characterization have long been the go-to methods for characterizing inclusions, impurities, and color-causing defects. Except for diamond window applications, it is usually these features that make the diamond most interesting or valuable.
Diamond’s potential as an electronic material has become legendary by virtue of its wide band gap (5.5eV), high carrier mobility, breakdown field, saturation velocity, and thermal conductivity. If this potential can be realized, diamond is ideally suited as the material Read more…