Silicon Carbide and Diamond
Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a wide-bandgap semiconductor already widely used for electronic and photonic devices and hosts a number of colour centres.
The current epoch of the Holocene is witnessing planetary change driven by humans rather than natural forces. The dominion of homo sapiens over earth’s various ecosystems may ultimately result in profound impact —bringing about mass extinction, loss of natural habitats and other cataclysmic events that are rapidly altering our atmosphere. However, with the help of conscious tech and climate holistics the present and future of the planet may yet be salvageable.
One of the most important elements for survival on earth —molecular oxygen (O2) accounts for the majority of energy emissions within aerobic organisms. Currently, the concentration of breathable oxygen in the atmosphere is 20.95%. However, across aeons, this ratio has oscillated within a habitable range —starting from the Cambrian period until present day Holocene. While every surge in O2 concentration levels has meant the development of life-giving conditions, every trough has been associated with a significant species-wide extinction —one we could find ourselves perched upon, soon enough.
One of the leading symptoms of our planet-wide, post-industrial, product-to-pollutant phenomenon is the accelerated rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide resulting in an alarming rise in global temperatures. Direct observations since 1989 have revealed that with rapid industrialisation, the concentration of atmospheric O2 has been declining over the past 30 years. Considering that O2 is essential for all aerobic life on earth, the accelerated instances of climate disruptions could potentially trigger catastrophic consequences. These unpredictable aftermaths could herald chaotic climate subsystems —making deoxygenation a credible threat to the survival of our 10-billion strong and growing, human inhabitants.
Unsurprisingly, among humans the consequence of hypoxemia (lack of functioning oxygen levels in the blood), can result in symptoms that mimic high-altitude medical threats such as tissue hypoxia, AMS (mountain sickness), chronic lung disease, pulmonary hypertension, reproductive dysfunction and in uncontrolled circumstances, asphyxiation-related mortalities.
Global atmospheric deoxygenation would lead to such complications being encountered at progressively lower elevations with incidences and severity increasing in scale unless we pause to take stock of our current O2 crisis. Even with genetic or other forms of evolutionary adaptation, our survival is greatly engendered. And even as atmospheres high in carbon dioxide concentrations can cause sudden death, the phenomenon is more often than not witnessed in combination with dangerously low oxygen concentration.
Currently, despite the data on oxygen decline being contentious, peer-reviewed reports speculating and predicting planetary asphyxiation as a future possibility are steadily emerging within the public sphere. It is increasingly apparent that such a deliberate disordering of the planet’s fragile ecosystem could result in unforeseen consequences that would annihilate life as we know it through man-made disasters.
An urgent priority and environmental concern, even the current reserves of respiratory oxygen will not be sufficient to tide us through a speedily approaching crisis that is visible on the brink of the 4IR (4th Industrial Revolution)
It is said that the ocean provides 50% of the oxygen we breathe —an insight that sheds light on the dependence of humans on oceans which are now at the credible risk of lower oxygen supply due to climate change and environmental degradation.
Currently, the ocean’s O₂ reservoir is imperilled —holding less than 1% of the oxygen stored in the atmosphere. It has been observed that ocean regions with elevated levels of oxygen absence (also known as oxygen minimum zones) are continuously expanding due to global warming. Deoxygenation of this kind negatively impacts marine biodiversity as well as food webs —thus impacting food security and inter-dependant livelihoods.
Accumulated levels of breathable oxygen on land as well as oceans across earth’s billion-year history are not limitless. Aggressively threatened by human activities, this inventory has led to a number of dead zones that have doubled every decade since the year 1960. With the deoxygenation and expansion of oceanic O2 minimum zones (OMZs), marine ecosystems are being increasingly threatened with the arrival of hypoxia —directly impacting the O2 inventory on Earth.
Humankind's demise at the hands of continuous progressive asphyxiation is imminent in the face of a future where escalating infant mortality will be the norm. Eventually, our species’ failure to reproduce will herald total extinction. In some sense, technological advancement could provide meek and dire life support within certain biospheres in the short term. However, human technologies are no match for the human havoc occurring on a planetary scale —leading to a barren armageddon. While it is not quite possible to prophesise the exact threshold value that could herald mass extinction, all current evidence relegates our fate to the gallows of morbid planetary disaster —where atmospheric O2 will be halved at sea levels. As per emerging mathematical models, such a scenario, a could annihilate all aerobic life via diminishing ecosystems.
Unless the slow, inevitable march of global deoxygenation is reversed through increased O2 production or reduced consumption, our world of obligate aerobes, will perish —our legacy on this planet, but a scorched footnote.
The global oxygen cycle, rendered in total disarray by progressive asphyxiation is not just an environmental issue but a technological one. Due to lack of replenishment by numerous so-called “green technologies” there is a massive contribution to the significant depletion of breathable oxygen.
While sound science tells us that we have less than a decade to begin bending the climate curve, global stakeholders need to urgently undertake immediate actions that promote a steady and replenishing output of O2 —combined with conscious tech and not just “green energy”. Despite a lot of climate don’ts, modern technology —deemed as the prime culprit in our planetary story of doom, can actually contribute in ways that heal.
Enter the Nuovo diamond, a synergising miracle between particle science and conscious tech, created for a better world in the heart of plasma reactors. While every diamond on earth made above ground or below displays the 4Cs - cut, colour, clarity, carat weight, the nuovo diamond is a class apart. Featuring a total of 8Cs —the first of which stands for climate positivity, each nuovo diamond is crafted using the CVD process —a complex, scientific endeavour that requires a lab-grown diamond to be designed down to the atom for a range of world-changing, futuristic applications. An amalgamation of intensive incubation, acute monitoring and precision engineering, the making of each rare Type IIa nuovo diamond (the rarest on earth) enables the release of process generated and purified O2 into the atmosphere.
As a technologically sentient and advanced species, cleaner air is not only our right, but also our duty and commitment to planetary survival. With the help of conscious technology, creativity, science, and the ever-looming necessity to reduce our impact on our only world, we need to reconcile and equip ourselves with alternative, more sustainable science led by climate-positive values.
Therefore, nuovo diamonds' mother technology does not merely regale itself to a green label but envisions a world that is made better for it having existed. Thus, the nuovo diamond —untorn from the bosom of the earth, does not strangle the world in its quest for brilliance. Ultimately, it claims climate positivity as one of its foremost qualities because it concerns itself with not only replenishing or balancing but actively pursuing the earth’s right to brilliance, beauty and better air quality.
Instead of further degradation, with the nuovo diamond, we can redefine our relationship with Earth from a wasteful, unsustainable and predatory one to one where people and nature can coexist in harmony.
Silicon Carbide (SiC) is a wide-bandgap semiconductor already widely used for electronic and photonic devices and hosts a number of colour centres.
Why the physical & chemical properties of wide bandgap semiconductors —silicon carbide & diamond are ideal for device fabrication, for application in many different areas
- Growth of diamond–SiC composite layers - Detailed composition and mechanical properties study - Enhanced scratch resistivity of layers
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