La saga du diamant : de Moissan à nos jours

Diamond synthesis by Moissan brought about fierce controversies and harsh criticisms. Our purpose is not to settle the debate but to show that many criticisms were not as rigorous as it could be expected from scientific arguments. We will briefly describe how diamond synthesis developed towards methods that make Moissan's work appears as quite reasonable. The paper concludes with a tribute to Moissan, Hannay and Burton who opened the way towards modern diamond synthesis and the predicted revolution of the semiconducting diamond.