Scientists have developed a way to make diamond bend like rubber.
The breakthrough, albeit seen on an extremely small scale, could pave the way for devices made from ultra-strong and flexible diamond-based materials.
In the study, an international team of researchers found that tiny diamond needles measuring just a few micrometers tall could bend by as much as 9 percent without snapping – and, they reverted to their original shape afterward.
Researchers from MIT, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Korea collaborated on the groundbreaking new study to bend the strongest of all natural materials.
‘It was very surprising to see the amount of elastic deformation the nanoscale diamond could sustain,’ said MIT postdoc Daniel Bernoulli.
While diamond is extremely strong, it’s also very brittle; in its normal form, the researcher says diamond’s stretch limit falls far below 1 percent.
To create the tiny diamond needles, the team used a chemical vapor deposition process.
Then, they etched the needles into shape under a scanning electron microscope, using a nanoindenter diamond dip to press them down.
The team ran a number of experimental tests, and conducted simulations to determine how much stress the needles could withstand.
They also developed a computer model to map out the deformation.
In the study, an international team of researchers found that tiny diamond needles measuring just a few hundred nanometers across could bend by as much as 9 percent without snapping – and, they reverted to their original shape afterward (illustrated)
‘We developed a unique nanomechanical approach to precisely control and quantify the ultralarge elastic strain distributed in the nanodiamond samples,’ said Yang Lu, senior co-author and associate professor of mechanical and biomedical engineering at CUHK.
According to the researchers, the nanoscale diamond was capable of withstanding as much as 9 percent tensile strain.
This, however, varied depending on the structure of the diamond.
While needles made of a single crystal had a maximum tensile strain as high as 9 percent, it dropped to less than half of that for needles made from many grains of a diamond.
Up until the critical maximum point, the needles’ deformation could be completely reversed if the probe was taken away.
According to the team, putting crystalline materials under these types of stresses can change their properties, from mechanical to magnetic and electronic, meaning ‘elastic strain engineering’ could be used to design materials for specific purposes.