ELASTIC DIAMONDS
Stretching diamonds can give them new electronic & optical properties
They can then be used for next-gen devices in microelectronics, photonics, & quantum information technologies
Although the precious stone is known for its high monetary value, diamond is also the hardest material found in nature. In other words, it does not have elastic properties at all… well almost — considering the stretchiest materials can reach tensile elastic strains of a few hundred percent, bulk diamond tops out at less than 0.4%.
A team of researchers led by the City University of Hong Kong (CityU) in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) has now demonstrated for the first time that the nanoscale diamonds can be stretched to limits not possible before.
But one would wonder, what’s the use of creating this tensile straining? And the answer is that this changes the electronic and optical properties of the diamond, giving it the ability to be used in advanced devices like microelectronics, photonics, and quantum information technologies.
“This is the first time showing the extremely large, uniform elasticity of…
