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“Natural diamonds usually form over billions of years, about 150 kilometers deep in the Earth where there are high pressures and temperatures above 1,000 degrees Celsius,” said Jodie Bradby, a professor at Australian National University and one of the authors of the study. in a media statement.
“The turning point in this story is the way we apply the pressure. In addition to very high pressures, we also allow carbon to experience something called “shear,” which is like a twisting or sliding force. We believe this allows the carbon atoms to move into place and form the Lonsdaleite and the normal diamond. ”
To observe and understand how this process works, the researchers used advanced electron microscopy techniques to capture solid, intact slices from the experimental samples to create snapshots of how the two types of diamonds formed.
The pictures showed that regular diamonds only form in the middle of the Lonsdaleite veins with this new method.
“Seeing these little ‘rivers’ of Lonsdaleite and regular diamonds for the first time was just amazing and really helps us understand how they might form,” said Dougal McCulloch, lead author of the study and a professor at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.
According to the scientists, Lonsdaleite has the potential to be used to cut ultra-solid materials at mining sites. As such, they have stated that creating more of this rare diamond is the long-term goal of their work.
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