Science / Technology - Colloquium
Monday, April 17, 2006
4:00 PM-5:00 PM
Olin Hall
107
Laymen and Scientists alike have had a longstanding fascination for diamond, thanks to its hypnotizing appeal as a gemstone and its unique physical properties. Its incomparable hardness makes it the best abrasive; it exceeds the thermal conductivity of even copper at room temperature; it is a perfect electrical insulator, unless it is boron doped when its resistivity is reduced by orders of magnitude. Even superconductivity has been reported very recently in such specimens. It is a material with the largest atomic density. These and many other striking properties have commanded the attention of scientists like Newton, Lavoisier, Humphrey Davy, Einstein, Lawrence and William Bragg. A short account of the extraordinary aspects of the genesis and, in modern times, the laboratory synthesis of diamond will be followed by illustrative examples from the Brillioun, Raman, and Infrared researches of my collaborators and me.
Cost: FREE
Suggested Audiences: College
E-mail:
garcia@wpi.edu
Phone: 508-831-5342
Last Modified: March 6, 2006 at 3:25 PM
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