harder than diamonds

Diamonds News wish you a brilliant day , diamonds & jewelry

harder than diamonds

Now, ultra-hard graphite that can crack diamonds!

London, Nov 7, 2010(found at ANI): Scientists have shown that when compressed, graphite can crack a diamond.

Now computer simulations by Hui-Tian Wang at Nankai University in Tianjin, China, and colleagues have shown that the compressed material could be at least partly made of bct-carbon, which is built up from rings of four carbon atoms, reports New Scientist

Bct-carbon has attributes of both diamond, which has a cubic structure, and graphite, composed of loosely linked sheets of carbon atoms in a hexagonal lattice. In bct-carbon, layers of carbon rings are linked by strong vertical bonds.

Wang's team reckons that bct-carbon's shear strength - a measure of how difficult it is to slide the carbon layers over one another - is 17 per cent greater than that of diamond.

The results indicate the prospect of making exceptionally hard materials without extreme heating. Most other materials we suspect to be harder than diamond require both high temperature and pressure to form.

Artem Oganov at the State University of New York in Stony Brook said that, compared with other candidates, there is "a much stronger basis" for bct-carbon to be harder than diamond, but added that experiments are still needed to test the claims. (ANI)

More about lab diamonds:

The Diamond Makers

~ Robert M. Hazen

Since time immemorial, we have treasured diamonds for their exquisite beauty and unrivaled hardness. Yet, most of the earth's diamonds lie deep underground and totally unaccessible to us--if only we knew how to fabricate them! In The Diamond Makers Robert Hazen vividly recounts the very human desire to exceed nature and create a synthetic diamond. Spanning centuries of ground-breaking science, instances of bitter rivalry, cases of outright fraud and self-delusion, Hazen blends drama and science to reveal the extraordinary technological advances and devastating failures of the diamond industry. Along the way, readers will be introduced to the brilliant, often eccentric and controversial, pioneers of high-pressure research who have harnessed crushing pressures and scorching temperatures to transform almost any carbon-rich material, from road tar to peanut butter, into the most prized of all gems. Robert M. Hazen is the author of fifteen books, including the bestseller, Science Matters: Achieving Scientific Literacy , which he wrote with James Trefil. Dr. Hazen has won numerous awards for his research and scientific writing.

harder than diamonds

Diamonds News wish you a brilliant day , diamonds & jewelry

harder than diamonds

Now, ultra-hard graphite that can crack diamonds!

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