At its nineteenth edition, three Mexican researchers were selected as winners of the 2009 Ig Nobel in chemistry for creating diamonds from tequila. The Ig Nobel, honored the work of Javier Morales, a doctoral student in the School of Physics and Mathematics at the UANL, Victor Brown, his advisor and Director of the Institute of Applied Physics of the UNAM and his colleague Luis Miguel Apátiga who have been developing a project to produce diamond films with a technique that was not currently used for this purpose, the technique is chemical vapor deposition Using Pulsed Injection Liquid.
Since its inception in 1991, the acceptance and popularity of the Ig Nobel awards has grown enormously. This award honors the achievements of the first research that can lead to laughter, but then make people think. The awards aim to celebrate the unusual, honor the imaginative and stimulating general interest in science, medicine, and technology. Those research achievements "that first can cause laughter, but then make people think" say its creators. According to the organizers, the editors of the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), the awards were established Ignacious as a tribute to Nobel, the fictional inventor of the soda pop, though in English Ig Nobel is pronounced like ignoble, which means "ignoble", hence the name.
The importance of the work of Mexican researchers lies in the fact that diamonds are usually insulated electrical power, however great they become semiconductors when a few atoms of other elements are integrated into its structure through a process called "Doping". Because the diamond is much tougher than silicon, thin films of diamond "doping" are extremely useful for the production of electrical and electronic operating in extreme or high temperature.
But diamond films are extremely expensive and difficult to manufacture. Are vaporized organic material and controlling how the carbon atoms are crystallized on a surface. The process works best if the initial material contains equal parts of oxygen and carbon, as well as some hydrogen.
Javier Morales found that tequila is an extraordinary raw material for these films. The inspiration came in a curious way: studying the molecular kinetics of the precursors used in the formation of diamond and found that any organic "water corrected" to change the atomic ratio of carbon-hydrogen-oxygen is useful as a precursor in the formation of diamond film.
One of the many night searches, "Morales recalled in an article published on the website of the University of Nuevo León, calculations showed that requires 40 percent ethanol and 60 percent water. By chance his wife reminded him that they should buy a tequila - "Yes, you can also tequila!" - Morales said aloud - "What do you mean? His wife asked "what Javier was only able to answer" No, forget it, go to sleep. "
The composition of tequila is very similar to the proportions calculated by the MC Morales as the national drink should be an excellent raw material. In this experiment we inject steam heated white tequila in a low pressure chamber measurements confirmed that carbon atoms were deposited diamond structure.
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