Avian’s Blog

NewScientist writes about a paper that explores the possibility of using tequila as a precursor material for growing thin diamond films by chemical vapor deposition.

The Mexican authors have written this wonderful introduction, with half of the text explaining state of the art in CVD and other half explaining state of the art in tequila production.

They claim that tequila contains just the right proportion of carbon, oxygen and hydrogen for carbon atoms to bond into a nano-scale diamond coating on a silicon and steel substrate. Such diamond films are a target of research into alternative semiconducting substrates for integrated circuits.

It's a funny discovery and I would really like to know the circumstances that led to the researchers pouring alcoholic beverages into their precious equipment. From my limited experience owners of such machinery are pretty paranoid about contaminating them with unknown substances and I can't imagine someone using a chemical that isn't semiconductor grade. On the other hand they used only some 1 dl of the liquor for the experiment, so the rest of the bottle's content may have helped them with that.

I'm a bit skeptical about the repeatability of their experiment thought. I doubt that all Orendain brand Tequilas blanco have the same C-H-O atomic relationships to two significant figures (or they must use some pretty impressive distilleries).