Synthetic Diamonds: Patent 5437243 Conversion w/ Supercritical Current?

[lilrex]

There is a patent (5437243) that describes a method of allotropic conversion of graphite to diamond using a supercritical current (1,000,000 columns) 4 microseconds >1000 volt potential.

The patent sounds a little iffy and of course I do not understand the principles behind the claim. I was wondering if anyone has some insight on this. Can you re-arrange the bonds of a crystal structure with current?

 

[rohanprabhu]

well.. if it actually carries out an allotropic conversion.. it isn't really a synthetic diamond.. it's an actual diamond..

 

[lilrex]

Yea I guess you are right, "synthetic" can cover a wide variety of compounds and techniques.

 

[lilrex]

I have not found any more information on this method of diamond production. however I wonder if one could cause a strong enough magnetic field to compress a diamond in a Z-pinch arrangement. according to my first glance calculations if one set up a Z-pinch reactor with a current of 1,000,000 amps, a 2.2TW discharge could produce 315.76 KBar of pressure on a graphite specimen .62cm in diameter and 2.54 cm long. With a proper duration of pulse the graphite could be heated to 2500K thereby accomplishing the conversion from graphite to diamond.

Of course there is the skin effect that would vaporize the outer periphery of graphite and not heat the core, so the whole "simple" setup is flawed anyway. Not counting the various other problems like insulating against flashover of 1.6MV across 2.4cm and so forth.

I wonder if I could come up with something that could collapse a copper tube and pre-heat the graphite to temp. That way the Z-pinch would use considerable less power and still accomplish the pressures.

Does anyone know how long the allotropic conversion at or above the “diamond/ diamond metastable graphite” line takes to convert? e.g. will < us time work?

But all of this has no relation to the phenomena described in the mentioned patent