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When a car skids, its tyres coat the road with black rubber. Ernest Nagy
used to offer this commonplace observation as an analogy to explain how he
suddenly discovered he was doing the unthinkable – using a jeweller’s
polishing mop to smear diamond, one of the hardest and toughest materials
known, onto all sorts of surfaces. ‘Window glass, razor blades . . .
anything that came to hand,’ could all be coated, he says. That was three
years ago, but Nagy still seems genuinely surprised that his discovery
gained him few friends in the world of materials science.

On the face of it, the researchers looking for a quick, cheap way to produce
diamond coatings should have been beating a path to his door. Their only
alternative at present is to vaporise carbon from a source such as methane,
and then carefully control the conditions so that the atoms end up on the
surface they want to coat. But the various forms of this method, known as
chemical vapour deposition (CVD), are slow and expensive compared with
Nagy’s technique. If he were really onto something, the rewards could be
huge and the glory immense. A successful process could transform the
economies of manufacturing sectors from shaving to ship building, from
microchips to military aircraft.

In practice, however, experienced hands were sceptical. Indeed, it was what
Nagy saw as an absence of sufficient enthusiasm that last year led him to
abandon attempts to negotiate a deal with Anglo American that would have
given the South African based conglomerate exclusive rights to exploit the
technology. Instead, Nagy chose to offer a free licence to anyone who wanted
it (‘Inventor with a diamond edge’, ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ, 12 December 1992).

Nagy certainly does himself no favours with his disarming candidness in the
face of serious scientific scrutiny: ‘I get a great kick out of life
unfolding in a serendipitous way,’ he says. Companies that have spent
millions of pounds over several decades in a considered, rational attempt
to achieve what Nagy has stumbled across by accident can be forgiven for
their cool response.

In their eyes, the fact that he could even have considered comparing diamond
and rubber in the context of laying down thin films invites ridicule.
Skidding cars mark highways because the friction generated between tyres and
road melts the rubber. It is absolutely inconceivable, Nagy’s critics
insist, that a spinning duster can generate the enormous temperatures and
pressures needed to convert diamond powder in the mop’s fibres into a film
on the surface of the material being polished.

RELIABLY INCONSISTENT

And then there is the question of the evidence: the only thing that seems
reliable about Nagy’s samples of diamond film is their inconsistency.
Sometimes the technique works, sometimes it doesn’t and the sample is
contaminated with lesser forms of carbon.

A contaminated film may still be useful as a robust veneer, if it could be
made cheaply enough. But it would be worthless in fulfilling the more
ambitious hopes of diamond’s proponents. These include diamond
semiconductors capable of operating far faster than silicon, and at
temperatures too high for today’s chips. Diamond’s unusual optical
properties, such as its ability to pass infrared light of long wavelength,
could make it invaluable as a protective coating for the windows in military
surveillance aircraft – ordinary glass is opaque to infrared light and the
best alternative, a film of germanium on a sheet of soft zinc sulphide,
loses its transparency as the window heats up in flight. But again, diamond
film would be a better option only if it were guaranteed free from
impurities.

Despite such reservations, about 80 people from around the world turned up
at the University of Bristol last month to hear how Nagy’s research was
going. The university has given him a laboratory of his own, financed by a
small band of his entreprenial supporters who have established the Nagy
Diamond Film Group to exploit the commercial potential of the technique.
Nagy was the star attraction of the workshop on diamond coatings and,
according to the organisers, his presence alone was enough to double the
number that would normally attend a gathering dedicated to a single rather
specialist subject.

Many in the audience would have preferred not to be associated with Nagy at
such an early stage in his technique’s development. But their curiosity got
the better of them, as well as the prospect of being left out in the cold
if his chance discovery bears fruit. A quick glance down the delegate list
revealed affiliations as diverse as the US naval research office, Gillette,
British Aerospace, Pilkington, Britain’s Defence Research Agency, British
Telecom, Xerox Corporation, Alcan International, as well as many small
engineering companies.

Speaker after speaker emphasised the enormous potential of creating
consistent, thin films of diamond cheaply. According to Johan Prins, a
research fellow at the Schonland Research Centre for Nuclear Sciences at the
University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, some of the most exciting
uses for diamond lie in electronics. These would take advantage of diamond’s
unusual ability to conduct heat and act as an electrical insulator. This
apparent paradox arises directly from diamond’s extraordinarily robust
crystal structure. Electrons are so firmly bound to carbon atoms within the
lattice that they cannot move freely enough for diamond to conduct
electricity. But heat is transferred in the form of phonons, or vibrations,
that are readily transmitted through diamond’s rigid structure; free
electrons are not necessary.

ENORMOUS POTENTIAL

‘The possibility is for electronic devices we cannot even think about
today,’ said Prins, who specialises in ion implantation into diamond.
Diamond semiconductors would be able to operate at several hundred degrees
Celsius, temperatures at which today’s devices would fail. Their electrical
and optical properties could be exploited to produce the next generation of
fast computers. He even suggested the development of light bulbs with
diamond filaments that could last a lifetime.

Much of Prins’s research at the Schonland centre is sponsored by De Beers,
an affiliate of Anglo American with substantial interests in South Africa’s
diamond industry. Prins stressed, however, that he was representing the
University of the Witwatersrand at the meeting. As far as Nagy’s dispute
last year with Anglo American is concerned, Prins says: ‘I don’t know where
the problems started. The vibes I picked up were that maybe they didn’t move
as fast as he wanted. I don’t think any side is to blame.’ He added that he
is ‘keeping an open mind’ on the potential of Nagy’s technique. ‘It is a
fascinating process as presented, but you cannot at this stage commit
yourself scientifically. Starting a research programme here at Bristol is
absolutely the right thing to do.’

David Dingley, reader in physics at Bristol university and a driving force
in the formation of the Nagy Diamond Film Group, said after the meeting:
‘The industrial interest is very large, some of which is supportive, some of
which is sceptical. Nagy’s approach is controversial in that it’s incredible
to believe that such a simple process works at all.’ He said the group had
produced its first set of samples on a newly installed polisher in Nagy’s
laboratory only the night before the workshop, and that there was
‘tremendous pressure’ from all sides to get things moving.

He is leading the attempts to identify and measure the presence of diamond
on samples produced by Nagy, and told the workshop how hard a task this
would be for any diamond film. The task has been made all the more difficult
because Nagy’s films measure only a few tenths of a micrometre thick. For
practical purposes, he says, they will need to be several micrometres thick,
comparable to the thickness of CVD coatings. But all the films of this
thickness that Nagy has produced have been contaminated with a high
proportion of amorphous carbon.

Early tests indicate that Nagy’s thin films contain high proportions of
diamond, though sceptics in the audience said that the results displayed at
the workshop did not provide conclusive proof. Dingley conceded as much
himself: ‘The signal to noise ratio is extremely small and one needs to be
very patient during the measurements, and of course there’s also
interference from the substrate.’ An X-ray diffraction image obtained by
irradiating Nagy film on steel showed a clear peak coming from the diamond,
he said: ‘It’s quite characteristic and X-rays are very precise in their
determination. But it’s a small peak indeed, and one has to have experience
in knowing that that’s a real peak and not an artefact of the apparatus.’

Dingley added: ‘Looking at a Nagy film on tungsten carbide, where the
tungsten carbide peaks are well separated from the diamond peaks, one can
get a much stronger indication that, in fact, these very thin films are
diamond and not amorphous, or graphitic.’

The results are promising enough for Gillette, the American company that
dominates the world market for razor blades and shavers. It emerged at the
workshop that, only a few days before, Gillette had signed a Pounds
Sterling 25 000 deal to become Nagy’s first major industrial backer. As a
paid-up member of the Nagy Diamond Film Group, Gillette will have immediate
access to the latest research results and the chance to obtain samples to
test in its own laboratories.

TENTATIVE SUPPORT

Two representatives of the Xerox Corporation subsequently confirmed that
their company ‘already has an involvement in Nagy’s work’. They would not
elaborate. According to Gene Swain, a project manager at Xerox’s Center for
Technology in Rochester, New York, there were ‘hundreds of potential uses’
for Nagy’s process within his company – coatings for bearings were one
example. His colleague, Geoff Foley, an area manager working in
photoreceptor supplies, development and manufacturing, said: ‘I think people
believe these are diamond films, but to do it and get consistent results –
that’s the tough bit.’

David Tunnicliffe, group leader of the materials science department at
British Aerospace’s research centre near Bristol, said his company was
‘trying to get involved,’ but felt the onus was on smaller component
suppliers to develop the technology. He thought there might be some way for
British Aerospace to help by sharing the cost of development work done by
its own suppliers. With this in mind, Nagy says he is about to sign up two
groups of smaller companies who have got together to stump up the Pounds
Sterling 25 000 membership fee.

Nagy says he has yet to make any money for himself from his discovery. The
£25 000 fees to join his club go to the University of Bristol
in recognition of its support. The additional sums charged to produce
samples for members, which will amount to around £2000 per
day, will finance his laboratory. His only remuneration will come from
selling licences on his patents, hastily filed in the run-up to the Bristol
meeting by a New York patent attorney who, unlike his British counterparts
that Nagy approached, was prepared to take on the work with no guarantee of
getting paid. ‘If I make money, I’ll pay the attorney,’ says Nagy, who sees
the arrangement as an incentive for the attorney to do a good job.

Nagy is adamant that he has not gone back on the spirit of his pledge to
give the technology away. He has, however, worked out a means to ensure he
gets some return for his efforts, and to help reward others who invest in
the technique. ‘I never said I was altruistic. I fully expect to be paid for
consultancy work. But everyone assumed I was hooked on money. I told them I
would rather throw the patents away than become a hostage to fortune.’ His
decision to ensure that there was a financial incentive in exploiting his
technique also follows advice from strangers, who had read of his pledge in
The Independent that he was not doing anyone any favours by establishing a
free-for-all. ‘People told me that no one would invest unless they have
some means of recovering their investment.’

As a result, he will grant anyone a licence to use the technique for a
specific purpose, say for coating skis with a tough, virtually friction-free
layer of diamond. They can have these limited rights free; or pay a fee they
feel matches his contribution to their commercial success. One-third of the
fee will go to Nagy, the remainder to those who set up the deal. However, if
he feels the licensees are abusing the arrangement, they are unlikely to
get a second deal, he says. Any one wanting a broader generic licence, say
to use the technique for coating glass, no matter for what purpose, would
have to negotiate a financial arrangement that satisfied Nagy.

Reflecting on the response to his ideas over the past three years, Nagy says
that he liked the analogy with car skidding because it made it easy for him
to understand what was happening. ‘Of course, that’s a simplistic
explanation. As I went on I realised it was a bit more elegant than that.
The surface is undulating, like a squashed-down Rocky Mountains range, yet
the diamond goes right into the valleys. There are a lot of things at play
and I’m sure the scientists will have a field day figuring out what the
actual mechanism is.’

Nagy’s current hypothesis is ‘that it’s a complex system of electrosatic
forces, of high G-forces, of partial vacuum at the interface. It’s more a
speed-dependent phenomenon than a pressure-dependent one, and it is
essentially a cold process taking place at atmospheric pressure under
ambient conditions.’ He suggests that a partial vacuum and an electrostatic
discharge between the particles and the substrate pull individual atoms out
from the substrate, which mix with the coating material to form a film.

Right or wrong, Nagy remains outspoken: ‘Another great advantage is that
not being a scientist allows me to say whatever I want and I don’t have to
worry about ruining my reputation . . . because I don’t have a reputation.’
He recalls his own incentive: ‘As soon as somebody told me ‘you can’t do
this’, that was just a challenge. What they did by saying ‘this won’t work’
was to put a commecial value on it. I knew then that it was worth doing.’

Susan Watts is the science and technology correspondent of The Independent.

Further information Nagy Diamond Film: Exposed on Video from Management
Communications Centre, 20 Walham Grove, London SW6 1QP. Running time 28
minutes. Price £250.