Diamond has long been prized not only for its beauty but also for its remarkable physical properties.
It is incredibly hard, conducts heat better than almost any other material, and can withstand very high electrical fields.
These features make it an attractive candidate for use in advanced technologies, from high-power electronics to quantum devices. Yet, despite diamond’s strength, scientists have never fully understood how it fails under extreme electrical stress—until now.
A research team from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed what happens when diamond reaches its breaking point.
Using a powerful technique called in situ transmission electron microscopy, the team was able to watch in real time as diamond was exposed to extreme electrical fields.
Instead of breaking down into graphite, as many had assumed, the diamond’s structure began to distort and collapse along a specific crystal orientation, known as the (111) plane. This distortion eventually led to the material losing its orderly structure, a process known as amorphization.
The team backed up their observations with computer simulations, using molecular dynamics models to mimic what happens to diamond at high temperatures under intense electrical stress.
The simulations confirmed that the (111) crystal surface is the most vulnerable, collapsing more easily than other orientations. This discovery means that diamonds cut or engineered along other directions—such as the (100) or (110) planes—could perform much more reliably in real-world devices.
Understanding the precise way diamond breaks down is more than a matter of scientific curiosity. It could have a major impact on how engineers design future diamond-based technologies.
Devices that rely on diamond for its toughness and resistance—such as high-frequency transistors, ultraviolet lasers, or even quantum computers—may be made significantly more durable by carefully choosing the orientation of the diamond crystals used.
The findings, published in Cell Reports Physical Science, provide crucial insights for the next generation of diamond electronics.
By revealing that the failure process is tied to crystal orientation rather than a simple transformation into another form of carbon, the study clears up long-standing uncertainty about diamond’s limits.
As Prof. Yan Qingbo, one of the study leaders, explained, the results point to a path forward: designing devices that exploit diamond’s strengths while avoiding its weak spots.
With this knowledge, scientists and engineers can now create tougher, more reliable systems that push diamond’s extraordinary properties closer to their full potential.
