English

Scalable Reshaping of Diamond Particles via Programmable Nanosculpting

Materials Science 2024-12-23 v1 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

Diamond particles have many interesting properties and possible applications. However, producing diamond particles with well-defined shapes at scale is challenging because diamonds are chemically inert and extremely hard. Here, we show air oxidation, a routine method for purifying diamonds, can be used to precisely shape diamond particles at scale. By exploiting the distinct reactivities of different crystal facets and defects inside the diamond, layer-by-layer outward-to-inward and inward-to-outward oxidation produced diverse diamond shapes including sphere, twisted surface, pyramidal islands, inverted pyramids, nano-flowers, and hollow polygons. The nanosculpted diamonds had more and finer features that enabled them to outperform the original raw diamonds in various applications. Using experimental observations and Monte Carlo simulations, we built a shape library that guides the design and fabrication of diamond particles with well-defined shapes and functional value. Our study presents a simple, economical and scalable way to produce shape-customized diamonds for various photonics, catalysis, quantum and information technology applications.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2409.09393,
  title  = {Scalable Reshaping of Diamond Particles via Programmable Nanosculpting},
  author = {Tongtong Zhang and Fuqiang Sun and Yaorong Wang and Yingchi Li and Jing Wang and Zhongqiang Wang and Kwai Hei Li and Ye Zhu and Qi Wang and Lei Shao and Ngai Wong and Dangyuan Lei and Yuan Lin and Zhiqin Chu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.09393},
  year   = {2024}
}