Diamond-nanotube composite material

www.anl.gov...
ARGONNE, Ill. (August 30, 2005) – Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have combined the world's hardest known material – diamond – with the world's strongest structural form – carbon nanotubes. This new process for “growing” diamond and carbon nanotubes together opens the way for its use in a number of energy-related applications.
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The resulting material has potential for use in low-friction, wear-resistant coatings, catalyst supports for fuel cells, high-voltage electronics, low-power, high-bandwidth radio frequency microelectromechanical/nanoelectromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS), thermionic energy generation, low-energy consumption flat panel displays and hydrogen storage.

Ultrananocrystalline™ diamond is the newest form of carbon on the block. Combing both aspects of Diamonds and Nanotubes will certainly come in handy for high performance computing, ultralight heatshield and maybe even direct heat to energy powerchips. Turning out to be an interesting summer in the Nanospace.

Yeah I heard of this while going through the nanotech websites. It seems to be a creative blend of both nanotube and diamond properties in one substance.

There are so many breakthroughs it is getting hard to read them all in one day(although I manage)... I can't wait to see what they can do!

I was a little bit puzzled by this at first, but it appears that they have pretty much allowed a diamond lattice and an elongated buckminsterfullerene molecule to grow side-by-side.

When I read the first paragraph, I minunderstood it and tought that they had made a nanotube that was built from a diamond lattice, which would not bring out the best qualities of each substance, but rather the worst.

A diamond gets is strength from three-dimensional sp3-hybridized orbitals that it coordinates with other carbon atoms - very thermodynamically stable. Graphite is only sp2-hybridized, making a 2-dimensional sheet with conjugated double-bonds, allowing for free electron flow across the sheet.

If you were to try and create a hollow, thin, narrow diamond lattice, you wouldn't have all the stability of a highly coordinated lattice. I cannot even think of what the sample would revert to if you tried it. Probably just graphite. I dunno.

with this tech we will finally be able to search the ocean floor for ET's! woohoo!

more info on creating diamonds :

www.zpenergy.com...

sounds very promising! Can't wait for my unscratchable watch and terrabytes of hd

Hello All...

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Can anyone suggest a good message board or informative web site that focuses on Nanotechnology? I've googled for message boards, and all I've come across are unmoderated sites with threads that quickly deteriorate into name calling.

I know almost nothing about nanotech, but I'd like to learn. Any suggestions for books that discuss nanotech in layman's terms?

Thanks!

Here are some sites.

www.foresight.org... This site is about Radical Nanotechnology

www.foresight.org... Blog about Nanotech news

en.wikipedia.org...

Don't know of any message boards dedicated to Nanotechnology if you run across one shoot me a U2U.