Authors
Zhi Jiang, Xueying Zhang, António José Silva Fernandes, Marco Peres, Gil Gonçalves
Published in
Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany). Pages e73876. Jun 22, 2026. Epub Jun 22, 2026.
Abstract
We report an ambient-pressure liquid-metal-assisted CVD strategy that enables shape-programmable growth of microscale diamond by coupling a liquid-metal Ga-In with ferrocene (Fe(C5H5)2) as a carbon precursor, nanodiamond seeds, and nanosilicon. Building on liquid-metal diamond synthesis, this approach pushes liquid-metal growth toward lower temperature (900°C, 1 atm) while enabling single-crystal diamonds to scale from ∼10 µm to several tens of micrometers with well-developed faceting. Ferrocene decomposition supplies a sustained interfacial carbon flux captured and redistributed by the Ga-In melt toward seed-rich liquid-solid interfaces. Defect-rich nanodiamond provides the crystallographic template required for reliable sp3 nucleation despite low carbon solubility in Ga-In. Nanosilicon plays a complementary role by tuning interfacial kinetics and facet competition, enabling control of crystal habit: cubic (∼10 µm), truncated-tetrahedral, and fully faceted octahedral diamonds are obtained by adjusting the nanosilicon: nanodiamond ratio, with octahedral crystals reaching ∼50 µm. Crystal size is further scaled by regulating hydrogen flow: lowering the H2 rate increases carbon retention at the liquid-metal interface, raises supersaturation, and accelerates diamond deposition. Together, habit control and size scaling establish a practical route for facet regulation and size control under ambient pressure, offering tunable microscale single-crystal diamonds under mild conditions.
PMID:
42324900
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 22 Jun 2026.
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