Sulfur: a new solvent-catalyst for diamond synthesis under high-pressure and high-temperature conditions

In the sulfur-graphite system, euhedral diamond crystals up to 150 mum in size could be synthesized by spontaneous nucleation under conditions of 8-8.5 GPa and 1600-1800 degreesC within 1 h. This is the first report of diamond synthesis from graphite using a single element as a solvent-catalyst since Akaishi et al. (Science 259 (1993) 1592) reported that elemental phosphorus was clarified to be a solvent-catalyst for diamond formation in 1993. The crystallized diamond grains had cubo-octahedron morphology and were bounded by {100} and {111} faces. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.