The new process not only favors the formation of diamonds but also protects organic materials from the damage that these bundles typically cause.
So far, the creation of diamonds was based on the transformation of carbon sources under extreme physical conditions. Diamonds are not spontaneously created: they are formed over time. But now, it seems not quite like that.
Now, the University of Tokyo experts followed a low pressure strategy, using a Controlled Irradiation of Electrons applied to a carbon cage -shaped molecule known as adamantano (C10H16). It was possible to create diamonds out of nowhere, all thanks to chemical rays.
“The real problem was that no one thought it was viable,” researcher Eiichi Nakamura told.
The team then decided to monitor the impact of electrons in solid adamantano, with atomic resolution, using an analytical and image technique called Electronic Transmission Microscopy (TEM).
“Computational data give you ‘virtual’ reaction paths, but I I wanted to see them with my own eyes“, Said Nakamura, who is one of the authors of the published in the Science In September, and that finally puts into practice a dream already 20 years old.
“However, the common wisdom among experts in has was that organic molecules decompose rapidly when exposed to a bundle of electrons. Since 2004 my investigation It has been a constant battle to prove the opposite“He concludes.
And this work also offers an important basis that for the synthesis of doped quantum points, essential for the construction of computers and quantum sensors, the researcher highlights.
“This example of diamond synthesis is the maximum demonstration that electrons do not destroy organic molecules, but allow them to perform well-defined chemical reactions, as long as we install adequate properties in the molecules to be radiated,” he says.
