Researchers Create Diamonds by Baking Spheres of Carbon
From Times staff and wire reports
German researchers report in today’s Nature that they have managed to create diamonds by baking small spheres of carbon known as carbon onions. Florian Banhart of Stuttgart’s Max Planck Institute for Metals Research and colleagues said heating the carbon onions to 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit caused tiny diamonds to form in the core. Usually, immense pressures are also required to form diamonds.
“We believe that our finding of a new way to convert graphite-like carbon to diamond could lead to a new understanding of the nature of the direct graphite-diamond transition,” they wrote.
