Nanosized and crystalline sp 3-bonded carbon materials were prepared over large surface areas up to ~33x51 m 2 from the exposure of few-layer graphene (FLG) to H radicals produced by the hotfilament process at low temperature (below 325 C) and pressure (50 Torr). Hybrid materials were also obtained from the partial conversion of FLG. sp 3-C related peaks from diamond and/or lonsdaleite and/or hybrids of both were detected in UV and visible Raman spectra. C-H bonding was directly detected by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) microscopy over an area of ~150 m 2 and one single component attributed to sp 3-C-H mode was detected in the C-H stretching band showing that carbon is bonded to one single hydrogen and strongly suggesting that the sp 3-C materials obtained are ultrathin films with basal planes hydrogenated. The experimental results are compared to computational predictions and comprehensively discussed. Those materials constitute new synthetic carbon nanoforms after fullerenes, nanodiamonds, carbon nanotubes and graphene. This opens the door to new research in multiple areas for the development of new potential applications and may have wide scientific impact, including for the understanding of extraterrestrial diamond-related structures and polytype formation mechanism(s).

A recent upgrade to the optics configuration of a thermal source FTIR microscope equipped with a focal plane array detector has enabled rapid acquisition of high magnification spectrochemical images, in transmission, with an effective geometric pixel size of ∼1 × 1 μm(2) at the sample plane. Examples, including standard imaging targets for scale and accuracy, as well as biomedical tissues and microorganisms, have been imaged with the new system and contrasted with data acquired at normal magnification and with a high magnification multi-beam synchrotron instrument. With this optics upgrade, one can now conduct rapid biodiagnostic ex vivo tissue imaging in-house, with images collected over larger areas, in less time (minutes) and with comparable quality and resolution to the best synchrotron source FTIR imaging capabilities.

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