Macquarie University Researchers, in a paper published in the US journal Optical Materials Express, show that even the earth's hardest naturally occurring material, the diamond, is not forever.
Associate Professor Richard Mildren and his colleagues from the Macquarie University Photonics Research Centre discovered that diamonds evaporate under exposure to ultraviolet rays.
The diamonds were exposed to intense light pulses in the UV-C band, after a few seconds small pits in the diamond surface were visible. The rate of mass loss in the diamond fell notably for lower light levels but the etching process still continued - although at a slower pace, Mildren said.
Under normal conditions evaporation is very small and not noticeable, so there is no need to panic Mildren said. In fact, even under very bright UV conditions, such as intense sunlight or under a UV tanning lamp, it would take approximately the age of the universe - about 10 billion years - to see an observable distance, he said.
The findings not only provide clues about the long-term stability of diamonds, but also have broad implications for future research.
"It's a very practical discovery and we are now looking at how we can exploit this," Mildren said.
"If we can make structures in the diamonds that enable us to control the position of the light within a very narrow filament in the diamond, that's the first step to making smaller and more efficient optical devices such as those used in quantum computing and high performance lasers."
