Diamond Image for the Diamond Jubilee 16 April 2012, by Tara De Cozar

Diamond image for the Diamond Jubilee 16 April 2012, By Tara De Cozar

incredibly difficult material to engrave on.

The NNC had the answer - a machine that uses accelerated gallium ions to work in fields as varied as pharmaceuticals and energy storage, and on

materials including food and graphene.

"The gallium ions go like bullets at incredibly high speeds and will chip off material from any surface," said Prof Poliakoff. It's Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond But it wasn't all plain sailing from here. Diamond Jubilee this year, but after 60 years on the throne, has no electrical charge, while the gallium ions are what special gift do you give the monarch to mark positively charged. After a while, the engraving this special event? creates a positive charge on the surface of the diamond. This electric field deflects the ions away Award-winning chemistry channel The Periodic from the surface - resulting in a 'foggy' image on Table of Videos knows -a microscopic etching of the first attempt. her profile on a diamond just 46 microns high and 32 microns wide, and invisible to the naked eye. "You could say that's really good, because the year And they made a video charting their progress. Her Majesty became Queen there was some of the worst fog in London that anyone could ever Prof Martyn Poliakoff of The University of remember," offers Prof Poliakoff. "You could hardly Nottingham's School of Chemistry called on his see more than a few feet in front of you. The colleagues in the Nottingham Nanotechnology and problem is, it doesn't make for a very good Nanoscience Centre (NNNC) on University Park to picture…" help him achieve his royal aim. It might seem an odd tribute to some, but as The Prof himself says: However, a solution to the fog problem was found. "Diamonds are chemicals after all." A layer of carbon - thin enough that it didn't affect the engraving process, but thick enough to create The Periodic Table team used a discarded an electrical charge - was applied to the diamond. diamond that had been intended for use in infrared The gallium ions did their job unhindered, and an spectroscopy. The diamond had been damaged image was successfully created. and was unsuitable for experimental use. "I think the result is pretty pleasing," said Prof "The next question was what to do with the Poliakoff. "It looks very like the Queen. And from a diamond," said Prof Poliakoff. "And the obvious scientific point of view, it looks very like the image thing to do was to put a picture of Her Majesty on that we used to make it. You can put one on top of it." the other and they match perfectly." They took the diamond to the NNNC, where the Filmmaker Brady Haran thinks the diamond should engraving machinery necessary for the attempt be sent to the Queen as a gift, while Prof Poliakoff was available during the Easter holiday. Dr. Chris would prefer the image to go into an exhibition of Parmenter and Dr. Mike Fay helped to address the objects connected to the Diamond Jubilee. What do main issues presented by the plan - the diamond is you think? Contact periodicvideos(at)gmail.com just millimetres across, and diamond is an with your ideas.

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Provided by University of Nottingham APA citation: Diamond image for the Diamond Jubilee (2012, April 16) retrieved 23 September 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2012-04-diamond-image-jubilee.html

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