Why making cubic diamond is easy and hexagonal diamond is hard

28:29let's ask, why is it so easy now? I mean, it's hard, but why is it so easy to create cubic diamond, normal diamond, >> Mhm. >> but it's so hard to create hexagonal diamond right? We're just pressing graphite, but every single time, we're just getting the lab-grown standard diamond. I want to create hexagonal diamond. The reason why is that standard high-pressure high-temperature conditions favor the formation of cubic diamond because cubic diamond is actually a global energy minimum. >> Mhm. >> You know, when we think about energy landscapes, we can think about orientations and how different orientations of the diamond have different energies. >> Yes. >> And it turns out the cubic diamond, even

29:10though it's sort of bigger and has that ABC ABC stacking, >> Yes. >> that has a lower energy and is more favorable than this ABAB smaller configuration. Okay? >> So, it's you got to go through a very specific route in order to get to this local minima and avoid the global minimum. >> That makes total sense. >> Okay? That's what it turns out. And that has a lot to do with a lot of the computational work that was done around the hexagonal diamond to figure out why is this >> Right. >> Why is this not working? Other people had done that work, okay? >> So, this team is like, all right, how are we going to make a press? How are we going to make a an

29:50experimental apparatus that is going to avoid that global minimum, not create a normal diamond, and create our hexagonal diamond? >> Is it almost like saying we intentionally have to create a uh uh an experimental apparatus that is not optimizing >> Mhm. >> for the easy like the best path. >> Yes. Yeah. Yeah. >> Like where it's Yeah, it's easiest. >> We need to go and figure out some way to like go off >> off the right right. >> Like it's like we got two depressions on a hill. It's like when you're skiing, right? You don't want to go all the way down to the the chairlift. You In Mammoth, you sometimes you want to go to the outhouse in the back to get your grilled cheese sandwich, right? But that

30:31requires being very cognizant of which turns you're taking down the ski hill, right? Otherwise, you're just going to end up in the lodge like everyone else and then have to wait like 2 hours to go up the mountain. We've all done that. >> Yeah, we've all been there. But no, but that's actually a really That's an a really interesting insight in that a suboptimal path >> Mhm. >> can actually lead to the the derivative effects that we are