MAN-MADE DIAMONDS

Wednesday June 07th 2006, 3:32 pm

Filed under: science, technology

Silicon Valley may soon have to be renamed DIAMOND VALLEY and diamonds may soon be so common you can put up on the soles of your shoes.

Scientists have made great strides growing diamonds in labs that outshine even the rarest De Beer’s rocks, through a process of chemical vapor desposition, which grows diamond crystals one carbon at a time. In addition to the ramifications for the jewelry industry, using CVD, scientists will be able (by somewhere around 2011) to cheaply mass-produce diamond semiconductors that are hundreds of times as powerful as their silicon counterparts.