title: High-yield fabrication and properties of 1.4 nm nanodiamonds with narrow size distribution.
abstract: Detonation nanodiamonds (DNDs) with a typical size of 5 nm have attracted broad interest in science and technology. Further size reduction of DNDs would bring these nanoparticles to the molecular-size level and open new prospects for research and applications in various fields, ranging from quantum physics to biomedicine. Here we show a controllable size reduction of the DND mean size down to 1.4 nm without significant particle loss and with additional disintegration of DND core agglutinates by air annealing, leading to a significantly narrowed size distribution (±0.7 nm). This process is scalable to large quantities. Such molecular-sized DNDs keep their diamond structure and characteristic DND features as shown by Raman spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy, STEM and EELS. The size of 1 nm is identified as a limit, below which the DNDs become amorphous.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Cukrovarnická 10, Prague, 162 00, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Stepan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stehlik
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Cukrovarnická 10, Prague, 162 00, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Marian
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Varga
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Cukrovarnická 10, Prague, 162 00, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ledinsky
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Cukrovarnická 10, Prague, 162 00, Czech Republic.|Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Technická 2, Prague, 16627, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Daria
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Miliaieva
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Cukrovarnická 10, Prague, 162 00, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Halyna
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kozak
authors.affiliation: Physics of Nanostructured Materials, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Viera
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Skakalova
authors.affiliation: Physics of Nanostructured Materials, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Clemens
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Mangler
authors.affiliation: Physics of Nanostructured Materials, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Timothy J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Pennycook
authors.affiliation: Physics of Nanostructured Materials, Faculty of Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Jannik C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Cukrovarnická 10, Prague, 162 00, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kromka
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics ASCR, Cukrovarnická 10, Prague, 162 00, Czech Republic.|Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Technická 2, Prague, 16627, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Bohuslav
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rezek