New Form Of Carbon As Hard As Diamond Discovered

Almost every one who went through the high school or college might have a little bit knowledge about Carbon , the chemical element which is abundant in this earth and its allotropes diamond and graphite. For those who care about allotropes, "Allotropy is the property of an element whose atoms bond in different manner to form different structures". So, far the well-known hardest elements were diamond and graphene from carbon family. Another new allotrope from Carbon family joins this list and proved itself as an element as hard as diamond in a recent research led by Stanford’s Wendy L. Mao and her graduate student Yu Lin.
#-Link-Snipped-#
When we peek into their research we could see that this new form of Carbon is capable of withstanding 1.3 million times normal atmospheric pressure in one direction while confined under a pressure of 600,000 times atmospheric levels in other directions. Again I am telling that this type of withstanding capability is only seen in Diamond, so far. To our surprise this material is more attractive than diamond to scientists and researchers, although not in the way the material looks, but due to the amorphous nature of this material.

“These findings open up possibilities for potential applications, including super hard anvils for high-pressure research and could lead to new classes of ultra dense and strong materials,” said Russell Hemley, director of Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory.

Source: #-Link-Snipped-#     Image Source: Glassy Carbon History