High-yield fabrication and properties of 1.4 nm nanodiamonds with narrow size distribution

Author(s)
Stepan Stehlik, Marian Varga, Martin Ledinsky, Daria Miliaieva, Halyna Kozak, Viera Skakalova, Clemens Mangler, Timothy J. Pennycook, Jannik C. Meyer, Alexander Kromka, Bohuslav Rezek
Abstract

Detonation nanodiamonds (DNDs) with a typical size of 5 nm have attracted broad interest in science and technology. Further size reduction of DNDs would bring these nanoparticles to the molecular- size level and open new prospects for research and applications in various fields, ranging from quantum physics to biomedicine. Here we show a controllable size reduction of the DND mean size down to 1.4 nm without significant particle loss and with additional disintegration of DND core agglutinates by air annealing, leading to a significantly narrowed size distribution (+/- 0.7 nm). This process is scalable to large quantities. Such molecular- sized DNDs keep their diamond structure and characteristic DND features as shown by Raman spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, STEM and EELS. The size of 1 nm is identified as a limit, below which the DNDs become amorphous.

Organisation(s)
Physics of Nanostructured Materials
External organisation(s)
Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Technical University in Prague (CTU)
Journal
Scientific Reports
Volume
6
No. of pages
8
ISSN
2045-2322
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep38419
Publication date
12-2016
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103018 Materials physics
Keywords
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/highyield-fabrication-and-properties-of-14-nm-nanodiamonds-with-narrow-size-distribution(e89560c7-aaad-466d-aa63-6e7eaf4d5e34).html