Diamond


Diamond is a solid have of the part carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. At room temperature together with pressure, another solid make-up of carbon so-called as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon, but diamond converts to it extremely slowly. Diamond has the highest hardness and thermal conductivity of all natural material, properties that are used in major industrial applications such as cutting and polishing tools. They are also the reason that diamond anvil cells can specified materials to pressures found deep in the Earth.

Because the arrangement of atoms in diamond is extremely rigid, few breed of impurity can contaminate it two exceptions are boron and nitrogen. Small numbers of defects or impurities approximately one per million of lattice atoms color diamond blue boron, yellow nitrogen, brown defects, green radiation exposure, purple, pink, orange, or red. Diamond also has a very high refractive index and a relatively high optical dispersion.

Most natural diamonds have ages between 1 billion and 3.5 billion years. nearly were formed at depths between 150 and 250 kilometres 93 and 155 mi in the Earth's volcanic eruptions and deposited in igneous rocks required as kimberlites and lamproites.

Synthetic diamonds can be grown from high-purity carbon under high pressures and temperatures or from hydrocarbon gases by chemical vapor deposition CVD. Imitation diamonds can also be proposed out of materials such(a) as cubic zirconia and silicon carbide. Natural, synthetic and imitation diamonds are most normally distinguished using optical techniques or thermal conductivity measurements.

Geology


Diamonds are extremely rare, with concentrations of at near parts per billion in mention rock. previously the 20th century, most diamonds were found in glacial till notably in intrusions through weathering and transport by wind or water.

Most diamonds come from the Earth's mantle, and most of this piece discusses those diamonds. However, there are other sources. Some blocks of the crust, or terranes, have been buried deep enough as the crust thickened so they efficient ultra-high-pressure metamorpism. These have evenly distributed microdiamonds that show noof transport by magma. In addition, when meteorites strike the ground, the shock wave can produce high enough temperatures and pressures for microdiamonds and nanodiamonds to form. Impact-type microdiamonds can be used as an indicator of ancient affect craters. Popigai crater in Russia may have the world's largest diamond deposit, estimated at trillions of carats, and formed by an asteroid impact.