Optical properties of diamond articles within Nature Materials

Featured

  • Letter |

    The photoluminescent properties of electron spins at nitrogen–vacancy (NV) centres are promising for use in quantum information and magnetometry. It is now shown that the coherence times of NV centres in nanodiamonds can be engineered to be comparable to those of bulk diamond.

    • Helena S. Knowles
    • , Dhiren M. Kara
    •  & Mete Atatüre

  • News & Views |

    Photoexcited diamond can inject highly energetic electrons in solution and promote the catalysis of a broad range of chemical reactions.

    • Christoph E. Nebel

  • Article |

    Solid-state catalysts do not participate efficiently in the reduction of N2 to NH3 because they tend not to form strong bonds with nitrogen molecules. It is now shown that, under ultraviolet radiation, hydrogen-terminated diamond can eject electrons directly in a liquid solution, thus allowing nitrogen reduction without requiring its preliminary adsorption on a solid surface.

    • Di Zhu
    • , Linghong Zhang
    •  & Robert J. Hamers

  • News & Views |

    The friction and wear of materials is part of our everyday experience, and yet these processes are not well understood. The example of diamond highlights wear processes that result from bumping atoms, showing that the devil is indeed in the details.

    • Jay Fineberg

  • Letter |

    The only way diamond can be polished is by pressing it against small diamond crystals, but this works well only for certain crystallographic orientations. The details of this wear mechanism have now been uncovered in simulations that suggest wear occurs via a thin amorphous layer on the diamond surface.

    • Lars Pastewka
    • , Stefan Moser
    •  & Michael Moseler

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