Nature 385, 513 - 515 (06 February 1997); doi:10.1038/385513a0

Hydrothermal growth of diamond in metal–C–H₂O systems

Xing-Zhong Zhao^*, Rustum Roy, Kuruvilla A. Cherian & Andrzej Badzian

Intercollege Materials Research Laboratory, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
^*Permanent address: Department of Materials, Science and Engineering, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China.

The first report of synthetic diamond involved a high-pressure high-temperature (HPHT) process in which diamond was the thermodynamically stable phase¹. Subsequent attempts to make diamond at less extreme conditions culminated in the rapid growth of diamond films by chemical vapour deposition^2,3. But the question of whether diamond might be grown in hydrothermal conditions mimicking those under which it is formed in the Earth has been long debated^4–6. It seems reasonable to suppose that metals might play a catalytic or solubilizing role in this context, given their role in the HPHT method¹, in a recent low-pressure solid-state synthetic approach⁷ and in the recrystallization of diamond in the Ni–NaOH–C system⁸. Hydrothermal synthesis of diamond has been explored at some length^9–13, but with equivocal results. Here we report evidence from spectro-scopic, diffraction and microscopic techniques which suggest that aggregates, tens of micrometres in size, of small diamond crystals can be grown in a hydrothermal environment from a mixture of carbon, water and metal (usually pure nickel). Crucially, we have been able to distinguish new diamond from the diamond seeds added to nucleate new growth.

1. Bundy, F. P., Hall, H. T., Strong, H. M. & Wentorf, R. H. Nature 176, 51−53 (1956).
2. Spitsyn, B. V., Bouilov, L. L. & Deryagin, B. V. J. Cryst. Growth 52, 219−226 (1981). | Article | ISI | ChemPort |
3. Matsumoto, S., Sato, Y., Kamo, M. & Setaka, N. Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 21, L183−L185 (1982).
4. Shatsky, V. S. & Sobolev, N. V. Dokl. Akad. Nauk [DAKNEQ] 331 (2), 217−219 (1993) (Russ.). | ChemPort |
5. DeVries, R. C. in Advanced Ceramics III (ed. Somiya, S.) 181−205 (Elsevier Applied Science, London, 1990). | ChemPort |
6. DeVries, R. C., Roy, R., Somiya, S. & Yamada, S. Trans. Mater. Res. Soc. Jpn. 14B, 1421−1445 (1994). | ChemPort |
7. Roy, R. et al. Innov. Mater. Res. 1, 65−87 (1996). | ChemPort |
8. Patel, A. R. & Cherian, K. A. J. Cryst. Growth 46, 706−708 (1979). | Article | ChemPort |
9. Roy, R., DeVries, R. C., Ravichandran, D., Cherian, K. A. & Badzian, A. Proc. 4th Int. Symp. on Diamond Mater. (Electrochem. Soc., Pennington, NJ, USA, 1995).
10. Zhao, X.-Z., Cherian, K. A., Badzian, A. & Roy, R. Abstracts Am. Ceram. Soc. Meeting, Paper SXII-22-96 (Am. Ceram. Soc., Westerville, OH, USA, 1996).
11. Roy, R., Ravichandran, D., Badzian, A. & Breval, E. Diamond Relat. Mater. 5, 973−976 (1996). | ChemPort |
12. Roy, R., Ravichandran, D., Ravindranathan, P. & Badzian, A. J. Mater. Res. 11, 1164−1168 (1996). | ChemPort |
13. Szymanski, A. et al. Diamond Relat. Mater. 4, 234−235 (1995). | ChemPort |
14. Gogotzi, Y. G., Nickel, K. G. & Kofstad, P. J. Mater. Chem. 5, 2313−2314 (1995). | Article | ISI | ChemPort |
15. Zhao, X.-Z., Cherian, K. A., Roy, R. & White, W. B. Abstracts Am. Ceram. Soc. Meeting, Paper SI-33-96 (Am. Ceram. Soc., Westerville, OH, USA, 1996). J. Mater. Res. (submitted).
16. Grot, R. C., Hatfield, C. W., Gildenblat, G. S., Badzian, A. R. & Badzian, T. in New Diamond Science and Technology (eds Messier, R., Glass, J. T., Butler, J. E. & Roy, R.) 949−955 (Mater. Res. Soc., Pittsburgh, USA, 1991).
17. Badzian, A. & Badzian, T. Int. J. Refract. Met. Hard Mater. (in the press).