Industrial Diamonds

#0030

Physics of controlling pulse technology for diamond synthesis and compaction.

Tech Area / Field

MAT-SYN/Materials Synthesis and Processing/Materials

Status
8 Project completed

Registration date
01.03.1993

Completion date
30.06.1998

Senior Project Manager
Urezchenko V M

Leading Institute
NPP Ballistic Technologies, Russia, Moscow reg., Korolev

Supporting institutes

VNIITF, Russia, Chelyabinsk reg., Snezhinsk
FIAN Lebedev, Russia, Moscow

Collaborators

Los-Alamos National Laboratory, USA, NM, Los-Alamos

Project summary

The shockless dynamic technology of diamond and diamond-like materials synthesis is under consideration. In a usual dynamic technology the pressure, needed for the diamond synthesis, is obtained at the front of the shock wave, in which high pressure is inevitably accompanied by high temperature. Thus one is forced to use a cooler to prevent the diamond graphitization, which greatly reduce the efficiency of synthesis: in the common case of the cast iron, where the iron is a cooler for the carbon granules, there is only 3-4% of carbon, half of which can be transferred to diamond. The invention of the shockless technology allows one to compress a pure diamond without a cooler, and to increase the diamond output from 2% to 50%.

Our aims are:

• To find the optimal regime of carbon compression, i.e. the optimal temporal pressure profile, using the exhaustive experiments on laser-compressed targets.

• To invent the economically compatible technology of its realization (i.e. the explosive-driven acceleration of pusher, or its acceleration in high-pressure ballistic tube).

The latter technology implies:

• The construction of the target, which allows to obtain the optimal pressure profile in the carbon target.
• The construction of pusher and requirements on its speed.

There exists an industrial technology of cheap microscopic diamonds synthesis from the explosive materials in high-pressure chambers. Au additional application of the invented technology is to conglomerate these 100-200 A° diamonds to large-scale polycrystals during the impact of accelerated pusher onto the diamond powder containing capsules.

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