XRD, NMR, and EPR study of polycrystalline micro- and nano-diamonds prepared by a shock wave compression method

We report on XRD, NMR, and EPR study of commercial micro- and nano-diamonds of the SSX series fabricated by a shock wave compression method. XRD data analysis shows that SSX samples consist of nanometer cubic diamond domains intermixing with stacking faults and twins. We show that as-received samples reveal a graphitic component, which may be removed by additional purification. Crushing the initial microdiamond powder into submicron and nanometer sizes does not result in noticeable variations of the XRD, NMR, and EPR parameters. This finding is explained by the fact that SSX diamonds are polycrystalline aggregates consisting of numerous nanocrystallites of ∼20–25 nm in size. Therefore, soft crushing of these aggregates diminishes their size, but leaves constituting nanocrystallites and their intrinsically facet surfaces mainly untreated. With that some modification of the outer nanocrystallite surface on crushing is observed.