Moissanite () is naturally occurring silicon carbide and its various crystalline polymorphs. It has the chemical formula SiC and is a rare mineral, discovered by the French chemist Henri Moissan in 1893. Silicon carbide or moissanite is useful for commercial and industrial applications due to its hardness, optical properties, and thermal conductivity.
Background The mineral moissanite was discovered by Henri Moissan while examining rock samples from what is now called Meteor Crater located near Canyon Diablo, Arizona, US in 1893. At first, he mistakenly identified the crystals as diamonds, but in 1904 he identified the crystals as silicon carbide. Artificial silicon carbide had been synthesized in the lab by Edward G. Acheson in 1891, just two years before Moissan's discovery. The mineral form of silicon carbide was named in honor of Moissan later on in his life.
Geological occurrence In its natural form, moissanite remains very rare. Until the 1950s, no source for moissanite other than as presolar grains in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites had been encountered. Then, in 1958, moissanite was found in the Green River Formation in Wyoming, US and, the following year, as inclusions in the ultramafic rock kimberlite from a diamond mine in Yakutia in the Russian Far East. Yet the existence of moissanite in nature was questioned as late as 1986 by the American geologist Charles Milton. Discoveries show that it occurs naturally as inclusions in diamonds, xenoliths, and such other ultramafic rock such as lamproite.
Meteorites Analysis of silicon carbide grains found in the Murchison meteorite has revealed anomalous isotopic ratios of carbon and silicon, indicating an extraterrestrial origin from outside the Solar System. 99% of these silicon carbide grains originate around carbon-rich asymptotic giant branch stars. Silicon carbide is commonly found around these stars, as deduced from their infrared spectra. The discovery of silicon carbide in the Canyon Diablo meteorite and other places was delayed for a long time as carborundum (SiC) contamination had occurred from man-made abrasive tools.
Physical properties
The crystalline structure is held together with strong covalent bonding similar to those in diamonds, that allows moissanite to withstand high pressures up to 52.1 gigapascals. Colors vary widely and are graded from D to K range on the diamond color grading scale.
Sources All applications of silicon carbide today use synthetic material, as the natural material is very scarce. Swedish chemist Jöns Jacob Berzelius proposed in 1824 that a silicon-carbon bond might exist in nature (Berzelius 1824). In 1891, American chemist Edward Goodrich Acheson produced viable minerals that could substitute for diamond as an abrasive and cutting material. Moissanite has a hardness just below that of diamond, comparable with those of cubic boron nitride and boron. Pure synthetic moissanite can also be made from thermal decomposition of the preceramic polymer poly(methylsilyne), requiring no binding matrix such as cobalt metal powder. Certain forms of single-crystalline silicon carbide have been used for the fabrication of high-performance semiconductor devices. As natural sources of silicon carbide are rare, and only certain atomic arrangements are useful for gemological applications, North Carolina–based Cree Research, Inc., founded in 1987, developed a commercial process for producing large single crystals of silicon carbide. Cree is the world leader in the growth of single crystal silicon carbide, used mostly for electronics. In 1995 C3 Inc., a company helmed by Charles Eric Hunter, formed Charles & Colvard to market gem quality moissanite. Charles & Colvard was the first company to produce and sell synthetic moissanite under U.S. patent US5723391 A, first filed by C3 Inc. in North Carolina.
Applications
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