handbook of carbon, graphite, diamond and fullerenes

11
Structure and Properties of Diamond
and Diamond Polytypes
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The first part of this book deals with graphite and carbon materials,
their structure and properties, and their various processes and applications.
In this and the next three chapters, the focus is on the other major allotrope
of carbon: diamond.
Diamond has outstanding properties, summarized as follows:
• It has the highest thermal conductivity of any solid at
room temperature, five times that of copper.
• It is the ideal optical material capable of transmitting light
from the far infra-red to the ultraviolet.
• It has an unusually high index of refraction.
• Its semiconductor properties are remarkable, with fifteen
times the average electric breakdown of common
semiconductors, five times their average hole mobility
and a dielectric constant that is half of that of silicon.
• It is extremely resistant to neutron radiation.
• It is by far the hardest-known material.
• It has excellent natural lubricity in air, similar to that of
Teflon.
• It has extremely high strength and rigidity.
• It has the highest atom-number density of any material.
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