@sonhouse saidIt would also be perfect for scratch-proof lenses, pots and pans, roof tiles and flooring.
@bunnyknight
Which of course would reduce the price of diamonds to 10 cents a pound since we would have millions of tons of the stuff.
Be great for electronics though, diamond is the best heat conductor outside of heat pipes so a layer of diamond maybe 10 nm thick would make a great contractor thick heat moving substrate going to a computer chip with ten billion transistors on it....
@bunnyknight
It would be prohibitively expensive to make optical grade lenses out of diamonds even if the material itself was free. You do know diamond is one of the hardest substances known to man right? So just how would you go about making a parabolic shape suitable for lenses, glasses, binoculars, telescopes, microscopes and such? You would have to use diamond dust to polish the lenses and even if free that would really complicate and slow down the production rate of such lenses.
@sonhouse saidMy idea on that, which I have had for decades now, is rather futuristic and we probably won't have the required technology and scientific knowhow to do this for a VERY long time, but;
@bunnyknight
It would be prohibitively expensive to make optical grade lenses out of diamonds even if the material itself was free. You do know diamond is one of the hardest substances known to man right? So just how would you go about making a parabolic shape suitable for lenses, glasses, binoculars, telescopes, microscopes and such?
Use artificial enzymes to deposit one layer of carbon atoms at a time with all the atoms correctly connected so to grow diamond cheaply at room temperature and pressure in a mold of the required shape (although I have thought of much more and extremely complex ways of doing this that I think would be much better because it avoids the need for a mold which I think would be awkward for the surface atoms) so that, after a few months of growth, you end up with the product, such as a lens in this case, made out of pure diamond exactly the required target shape so there is then no need for griding and polishing it to the required shape.
@humy
Enzymes can DEPOSIT carbon? How does that work? I can see it might be beneficial but what does a lens made of diamond buy you? Expansion coefficient? Bandwidth? Not sure what the optical bandwidth of diamond is, maybe UV through IR? For instance, pure silicon is transparent to IR but blocks visible light so it can be used if you want to, for an IR lens. Not sure what benefits you derive from diamond lenses though.
Suppose the hypothetical process you talk about used for carbon, what if the same can be done for quartz? Silicon dioxide, which already has a very low thermal expansion coefficient.
@sonhouse saidI wouldn't know the details of that because the way enzymes work is always extremely complex but, logically, there must be a way of making that work because natural enzymes transform organic molecules, i.e. molecules containing carbon atoms, in living cells thus proving they can manipulate where the carbon atoms end up and change how those carbon atoms are chemically bonded to which other atoms including other carbon atoms.
@humy
Enzymes can DEPOSIT carbon? How does that work?
Not sure what the optical bandwidth of diamond is, maybe UV through IR?
It has very good transparency for nearly the whole of IR and most of the UV except for some of the UVC parts of the spectrum. Thus it would be generally better than quarts in that respect.
But I see the main advantage of it not being that but rather, providing it is made via artificial enzymes (else this wouldn't be so), it should be possible to manufacture it very cheaply and probably more so than what it would be if it were made by other materials such as quarts etc.
Damond has about 1.0 x 10-6 (1/K) for linear expansion and 3.0 x 10-6 (1/K) for volumetric expansion.
Although Fused quartz has only about half of that, this is still a relatively low amount of expansion compared with most other materials including some used to make lenses.
To see how much so, just look at the list for comparisons here;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_expansion#Thermal_expansion_coefficients_for_various_materials
@humy saidOh sorry, that would be wrong because that wouldn't work if the lens was, as I asserted above. "pure diamond" as in ONLY made out of diamond because I forgot all about chromatic aberration there;
such as a lens in this case, made out of pure diamond
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration
Although it may be a good idea for there to be some diamond in it, there would have to be some layers of at least one other type of material i.e. a non-diamond material in that lens and so arranged to cancel out the worst of the chromatic aberration else that chromatic aberration would be too severe and thus the lens no good.
There may also be some need for an anti-reflectant on the surface of the lens which presumably wouldn't be made of diamond.
Still, having some diamond in the lens could help.
@bunnyknight saidLove the way you insist on practical engineering solutions.
Exactly my thoughts.
Probably the only way to get to it might be to slam Jupiter with a heavy moon to break up the core, and then retrieve the scattered diamond chunks.
@deepthought saidI have to admit that this solution may not be super-simple because finding a big, heavy moon could be tricky, as most moons have too much soft rock and fluffy ice.
Love the way you insist on practical engineering solutions.
@bunnyknight
well, you just have to have a very long bungie strap hooked to a fairly powerful rocket, easy piezie.....