Patent 7959841 was granted and assigned to Los Alamos National Security on June, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Uniformly dense, diamond-silicon carbide composites having high hardness, high fracture toughness, and high thermal stability are prepared by consolidating a powder mixture of diamond and amorphous silicon. A composite made at 5 GPa/1673K had a measured fracture toughness of 12 MPa·m1/2. By contrast, liquid infiltration of silicon into diamond powder at 5 GPa/1673K produces a composite with higher hardness but lower fracture toughness.