Picture Origin: Wikipedia GNU GPLSome Scientists in Germany have produced a slightly harder Material than Diamonds.
"Aggregated diamond nanorods" are made of Buckminster Fullerenes compressed under high pressure. They are as hard as 491 gigapascals (GPa) (diamonds are 442 GPa).
Not bad for a little football. Who would have thought that this graphite-like soft material could be harder than diamond after being compressed ? I would have expected that id would become into ordinary diamonds.
Diamonds are not forever (August 2005) - News - PhysicsWeb: "Natalia Dubrovinskaia and colleagues at the University of Bayreuth made the new material by subjecting carbon-60 molecules to immense pressures.
....
Diamond derives its hardness from the fact that each carbon atom is connected to four other atoms by strong covalent bonds. The new material is different in that it is made of tiny interlocking diamond rods. Each rod is a crystal that has a diameter of between 5 and 20 nanometres and a length of about 1 micron.
....
These measurements indicated that ADNRs are about 0.3% denser than diamond, and that the new material has the lowest compressibility of any known material."
Technorati Tags: Buckminster, Fullerene, diamond, science, Germany, C60
Ad: Visit Aestheticform in Mannheim
