Diamond like compound

Compounds which

• (1) fall under the class of gemstone like compounds and
• (2) have a crystal structure similar to diamond (cubic and hexagonal)

Sometimes "diamondoid" refers to just (1). In this wiki though both will be required to be true (starting 2021-06).

Note that mixes between cubic and hexagonal are possible (along one spacial dimension) by choice of "stacking order". Mechanosynthesizing such cubic hexagonal switches in more than one dimension leads to at least controlled atomically precise line like one dimensional faults.

Example compounds

Diamond of course

• normal cubic diamond
• hexagonal diamond aka lonsdaleite.

Compounds with partial (e.g. 50%) substitution of carbon

• moissanite (this is gemstone grade transparent silicon carbide SiC)
• germanium carbide – (germanium is not too abundant)
• tin carbide – this one is not producible via thermodynamic means. Maybe it van be piezochemically mechanosynthesized.

Compounds made from other elements of the same group in the periodic table

• pure silicon
• pure germanium
• The oddball compound that is grey tin.
• ... lead rather not – it is too metallic

III-IV semiconductors

• AlN – aluminum nitride – Aluminium nitride – hydrolyses in water but forms a macroscale passivation layer – transparent in visible light since high bandgap
• BN – boron nitride – Boron nitride (cubic c-BN and hexagonal w-BN) – not referring to it's graphitic polyporph h-BN – (Visible appearance: Likely transparent? To check.)
• BP – boron phospide – Boron phosphide – (only attacked by molten alkalis) – almost(?) transparent – n-doped orange-red, p-doped dark-red
• AlP – aluminum phospide – Aluminium phosphide – reacts with water and releases highly toxic phosphine gas (beside alumina powder) – (Optical appearance: dark grey to dark yellow? What when ultra pure?)

Other

• Checkerboard pattern neo polymorphs between group IV elements and III-IV semiconductors.

Soft:

• ZnS – Zinc sulfides [1]
• ZnS – cubic – sphalerite – Mohs 3.5-4.0 – n_α = 2.369 – (40% iron substitution possible via thermodynamic means)
• ZnS – hexagonal – wurzite – Mohs 3.5-4.0
• – (ZnS mátraite – trigonal – is not of diamond like structure – Mohs 3.5-4.0 – 3D structure of unit cell??)

Diamondoid molecular building blocks

• 1,3,5,7-Hexamethylenetetramine | C6H12N4 – (wikipedia)
• 1,3,5,7-Tetraboraadamantane | C6H12B4 – (pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

These two have been proposed as bigger building blocks that may be easier to handle in a direct path approach. See: Lattice scaled stiffness.

• The integrated nitrogen atoms can form coordinate bonds to integrated boron atoms.
• the tetrahedral geometry (equal to an sp3 hybridized carbon – See: The basics of atoms) stays preserved.

(wiki-TODO: Find that proposal)

Related

• Gemstone like compounds
• Gemstone like compounds with high potential
• Neo polymorphs
• Organic anorganic gemstone interface

External links

• Diamondoid
• Diamond_cubic – Diamond
• Lonsdaleite_hexagonal – Lonsdaleite
• Category:Adamantane-like_molecules