ABSTRACT
In present-day nanotechnologies, there has been a gradual shift from traditional, the so-called "top-down", processes to "bottom-up" methods, that is, processes based on assembly of nanosized building blocks to develop materials with required properties. The idea underlying the dynamic synthesis of nanometer-sized diamonds essentially consists of providing the pressure and temperature needed to drive the graphite–diamond-phase transition by means of a shock wave. Like all dynamic methods, the detonation-based synthesis of nanodiamonds (NDs) is basically a version of classical synthesis adapted to the high-pressure and temperature conditions providing the required thermodynamic stability of diamond. One major feature of the detonation synthesis of NDs is that it does not require graphite or any other additional source of carbon to support it. The diffraction-based approach combines direct methods capable of evidencing diamond ordering of atoms in a crystal lattice and offering a possibility of estimating the degree of this ordering.
