Member • Dec 21, 2016
7. Diamonds do not conduct electricity.
Many engineers once believed diamonds could not conduct electricity due to a tetrahedron structure made by covalent bonds between carbon atoms, which doesn’t allow for free electrons to carry current. Most natural diamonds are electrical insulators, but by manipulating the properties of diamond through CVD, it is possible to introduce controlled dopants that let the material conduct electricity quite effectively.
Adding boron to the lattice make diamonds blue at low concentrations and opaque at higher concentrations. At these high concentrations, diamonds behave like a metal and become a good conductor of electricity.
Boron doped diamonds (BDD) make excellent electrode materials with a larger electrochemical potential window in aqueous solutions than conventional electrode materials. BDD are also extremely chemical-stable and able to survive in extreme environments, such as highly contaminated waste water treatment applications.
Administrator • Dec 21, 2016
Diamonds degrade to graphite because graphite is a lower-energy configuration under typical conditions.
