Scientists develop material that's harder than diamonds

Diamonds may be forever, but they aren’t what they were. True, they shine just as brightly and they’re as hard as ever, but scientists from the Carnegie Institution of Washington are giving them some competition. An international team led by Carnegie’s Lin Wang has discovered a new substance that is not quite crystalline and not quite non-crystalline, yet is hard enough to dent diamonds.

The new substance, which has yet to be named, is described by Wendy Mao, a Stanford University professor, as a “hybridization of crystalline and amorphous structures at an atomic level.” It was also something of a surprise to the Carnegie team.

The super-hard material started out as clusters of carbon-60 – the soccer-ball shaped molecules of carbon commonly known as "“buckyballs." These were mixed with m-xylene solvent, which is used in the manufacture of soft drink bottles. The mixture was then placed in a diamond cell anvil at the Argonne National Laboratory's Advanced Photon Source in Argonne, Illinois.

Source: gizmag.comAdded: 23 August 2012