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Annealing is an important step in semiconductor fabrication. The doping of silicon crystals is done by ion implantation which creates a lot of defects in the crystal lattice. Heating the crystals for a while enables atoms to relocate to heal the defects.

However, diamonds are thermodynamically unstable compared to graphite. Does that mean if we heat the diamond crystals, carbon atoms will preferentially rearrange into graphite structure? lattice healing by annealing

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  • $\begingroup$ "diamonds are thermodynamically unstable compared to graphite" This would be the answer, if true. Any refs? Like this one? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_properties_of_diamond $\endgroup$ Commented 16 hours ago
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    $\begingroup$ Yeah. Both the enthalpy and extropy favor diamond to graphite transformation $\endgroup$ Commented 15 hours ago
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    $\begingroup$ The Wikipedia link currently contains the sentence "owing to a very large kinetic energy barrier, diamonds are metastable [and] will not decay into graphite under normal conditions," with the citation "Webster, R.; Read, P. G. (2000). Gems: Their sources, descriptions and identification." $\endgroup$ Commented 15 hours ago
  • $\begingroup$ I should be more direct. Your premise is false. See the section 'Thermal Stability'. It's only a few lines of text. $\endgroup$ Commented 11 hours ago

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There is an extensive literature on ion implantation of diamond and annealing. See, e.g., the recent review article, "Recent progress of boron doping in diamond by ion implantation", by Hoshino and Seki, J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 58 473002, 2025, and the references cited there. Link to article

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  • $\begingroup$ Yup, turns out to be really hard to convert diamond to graphite thermally. $\endgroup$ Commented 6 hours ago

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