Environmentally Friendly Refining of Diamond-Molecules via the Growth of Large Single Crystals

• Published in: Crystal growth & design Vol. 10; no. 2; pp. 870 - 873
• Main Authors: Iwasa, Akio, Clay, Will A, Dahl, Jeremy E, Carlson, Robert M. K, Shen, Zhi-xun, Sasagawa, Takao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington,DC American Chemical Society 03.02.2010
• Subjects: Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology; Exact sciences and technology; Fullerenes and related materials; diamonds, graphite; Materials science; Methods of crystal growth; physics of crystal growth; Physics; Specific materials; Theory and models of crystal growth; physics of crystal growth, crystal morphology and orientation; Monocrystals; Optoelectronics; Synthetic diamond; Diamonds; Growth mechanism; Real time; Environmental protection
• ISSN: 1528-7483; 1528-7505
• DOI: 10.1021/cg901218t

Using a home-made transparent two-zone furnace, single crystals of diamond molecules (or diamondoids) up to ∼1 cm3 were grown under real time observation using the vapor transport technique. This process proved to be an environmentally friendly means of refining diamond molecules. Optical measurements were performed to evaluate the purity of diamond molecules before and after the process, which demonstrated that even a trace amount of impurities in commercial samples was successfully removed by our method. The thus-obtained high-purity single crystals will accelerate fundamental and applied research on diamond molecules in the solid state, especially in the field of optoelectronics.