Beware! Not All Diamonds are Forever

Believe it or not, an expensive diamond necklace may not be a perfect gift to win over your beloved as it has a tendency to disappear.

Some microscopic diamonds only last seconds, according to researchers from Rice University.

The nanodiamonds were seen fading back into less-structured forms of carbon under the power of an electron beam, said a researcher from Rice University.

Another researcher at the university said that small diamonds are not stable and they revert to the starting material, the anthracite.

Macro scale diamonds require extreme pressures and temperatures to form.

Nanodiamonds up to 20 nanometers in size can be formed in hydrogenated anthracite.

The researchers wrote in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters that the smallest nanodiamonds were unstable under continued electron-beam radiation.