Nanodiamonds for advanced photonic and biomedical applications

Nanocrystalline diamonds or nanodiamonds (NDs) have many interesting properties leading to various extreme applications, including in emerging areas of high-power high-temperature electronics, field emission, photonics and biomedical e.g., drug delivery and medical imaging. Fascinatingly, NDs’ properties could be tailored to applications dependent on particle size: nanocrystalline (particle size ~1 to ≥150 nm), ultrananocrystalline (~2 to 10 nm), and diamondoids (~1 to 2 nm). NDs, being the hardest materials, find mechanical applications as wear-resistant coatings, lubrication; with its high thermal-conductivity used in heat-sinks and heat-propagators, and with high negative electron affinity, NDs can be also used as electron emitters. NDs are optically transparent in the ultraviolet to far-infrared (IR), and are employed in IR and high-power laser lenses, and in window-coatings in hazardous environment like reactors, satellites, or space shuttles. The exciting emerging applications of NDs in advanced photonics and biomedical have been elaborated in the current chapter with comprehensive literature study.