March 28, 2024

Scientists have created a crystal 1.6 times stronger and harder than diamond

Scientists have created a crystal 1.6 times stronger and harder than diamond

The researchers created a lonsdaleite crystal that was 58% stronger and tougher than a regular diamond.

Diamond has good optical properties,high thermal conductivity and is the hardest natural material on our planet. It is commonly used in various cutting devices, drills and other abrasive machining tools. However, now scientists have been able to create and study in the laboratory a fairly large sample of a material called lonsdaleite – hexagonal polymorphicmodification of diamond with a denser arrangement of carbon atoms.

To obtain it, a group of researchersused a shock compression method, shooting a small diamond with coin-sized graphite discs. Using compressed gas and gunpowder, the shells were accelerated to an incredible speed of 24,140 km / h. Colliding with the diamond, they created powerful shock waves, compressing the structure of the crystal to lonsdaleite.

At this time, scientists sent to the samplesmall sound waves and tracked their movement through the material using lasers. The speed of sound movement depends on the density (or stiffness) of the medium in which it moves. After analyzing the data obtained during the experiments, the team determined that lonsdaleite is 58% stronger than diamond, which is the highest number of any materials known to date.

However, in the near future, one should not expect thatthis modification will become available. The problem is that in the laboratory, the ultra-strong form of the diamond existed for only a fraction of a second, until the crystal was destroyed by the enormous force of the impact of the graphite disk. Therefore, in the future, researchers will search for a way to obtain stable samples.

Recall that earlier scientists have created a uniquea material that has high electrical conductivity, like a metal, but is superhard and can withstand tremendous pressure, like a diamond.

</p>