Elastic properties of transparent nano-polycrystalline diamond measured by GHz-ultrasonic interferometry and resonant sphere methods

The sound velocities and elastic moduli of transparent nano-polycrystalline diamond (NPD) have been determined by GHz-ultrasonic interferometry on three different bulk samples, and by resonant spectroscopy on a spherically fabricated NPD sample. We employ a newly-developed optical contact micrometer to measure the thickness of ultrasonic samples to +/- 0.05 mu m with a spatial resolution of similar to 50 mu m in the same position of the GHz-ultrasonic measurements, resulting in acoustic-wave sound velocity measurements with uncertainties of 0.005-0.02%. The isotropic and adiabatic bulk and shear moduli of NPD measured by GHz-ultrasonic interferometry are K-S0 = 442.5 (+/- 0.5) GPa and G(0) = 532.4 (+/- 0.5) GPa. By rotating the shear-wave polarization direction, we observe no transverse anisotropy in this NPD. Using resonant sphere spectroscopy, we obtain K-S0 = 440.3 (+/- 0.5) GPa and G(0) = 532.7 (+/- 0.4) GPa. For comparison, we also measured by GHz-ultrasonic interferometry the elastic constants of a natural single-crystal type-IA diamond with about one-half the experimental uncertainty of previous measurements. The resulting Voigt-Reuss-Hill averaged bulk and shear moduli of natural diamond are K-S0 = 441.8 (+/- 0.8) GPa and G(0) = 532.6 (+/- 0.5) GPa, demonstrating that the bulk-elastic properties of transparent NPD are equivalent to natural single-crystal diamond as calculated from polycrystalline averaging of its elastic constants. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.