DIAMOND PROPERTIES
Associated with diamond will almost always be the most extreme: Diamond is invariably 'the biggest and the best'. The following is a table of the properties of diamond that render it so potentially useful across many fields of science (Ref. 'Synthetic Diamond - Emerging CVD Science and Technology', Spear and Dismukes, Wiley, NY, 1994)
| PROPERTY | VALUE | UNITS |
| Hardness | 10.000 | kg/mm2 |
| Strength, tensile | >1,2 | GPa |
| Strength, compressive | >443 | GPa |
| Sound velocity | 18.000 | m/s |
| Density | 3,52 | g/cm3 |
| Young's modulus | 1.140 | GPa |
| Poisson's ratio | 0,2 | Dimensionless |
| Thermal expansion coefficient | 0,0000011 | /K |
| Thermal conductivity | 20,0 | W/cm-K |
| Thermal shock parameter | 30.000.000 | W/m |
| Debye temperature | 2.200 | K |
| Optical index of refraction (at 591 nm) | 2,41 | Dimensionless |
| Optical transmissivity (from nm to far IR) | 225 | Dimensionless |
| Loss tangent at 40 Hz | 0,0006 | Dimensionless |
| Dielectric constant | 5,7 | Dimensionless |
| Dielectric strength | 10.000.000 | V/cm |
| Electron mobility | 2.200 cm2 | /V-s |
| Hole mobility1,600cm2/V-s | ||
| Electron saturated velocity | 27.000.000 | cm/s |
| Hole saturated velocity | 10.000.000 | cm/s |
| Work function | small and negative | cm/s |
| Bandgap | 5,45 | eV |
| Resistivity | 1013-1016 | Ohm-cm |