40% harder than natural minerals: a unique super diamond has been created in China
Chinese scientists from two universities have created a superhard "superdiamond" in the laboratory that is significantly stronger than natural diamonds. The main feature of the new material is its hexagonal crystal structure, whereas most natural and synthetic diamonds are cubic. Previously, such superhard diamonds were found only in impact craters, which made them extremely rare.
According to Interesting Engineering, this discovery can be used in various key industries. The "superdiamond" was developed by researchers from Jilin University led by Liu Bingbin and Yao Mingguang, as well as Zhu Shengcai from Sun Yat-sen University in Shenzhen. They found that graphite can transition to the so-called "post-graphite phase". In the process of compression and heating under extremely high pressure, this phase transforms into a hexagonal diamond.
The first such material, lonsdaleite, was found in 1967 in the Diablo Canyon meteorite in Arizona. It has not been possible to reproduce it artificially for a long time, but Chinese scientists have been able to develop a method for synthesizing almost pure and well-crystallized hexagonal diamonds from graphite.
According to them, the created material is characterized by high quality and unique physical properties. It is 40% harder than natural diamonds and has better thermal stability than nanodiamonds. Thanks to these characteristics, hexagonal diamond has great potential for industrial use. The scientists also emphasized that their results help to better understand the process of graphite to diamond transformation under extreme conditions.
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