Formation of Compressed and Mixed-Layered Graphite on Heating Impact Diamonds

Abstract

The graphitization process of impact diamonds in the helium atmosphere at 1900–1960 °C is investigated. It is shown that when an impact diamond particle with a large number of lonsdaleite defects is kept at 1900 °C for 1 min, ~5 wt.% of graphite are formed (in the paralle experiment with a particle without lonsdaleite defects the graphite formation is not observed). With an increase in the temperature to 1930 °С and 1940 °С the graphite amount increases to 70 wt.% and 80 wt.% respectively. In both cases, a mixture of two graphite phases forms: the first is turbostratic graphite with d₀₀₂ = 3.38 Å; the second is compressed graphite with d₀₀₂ = 3.21 Å. On heating a particle to 1960 °C graphite is formed in which the layer packing contains a large amount of defects and is a mixture of 2Н and 3R polytypes (the ratio 40:60) with a small degree of turbostratic disordering.