Successfully made super-hard diamond glass by compressing a 'carbon soccer ball'

Researchers at the Carnegie Institution for Science have successfully developed super-hard diamond glass, made from a structure of carbon atoms in the shape of a 'football'. The new material has good thermal conductivity, and could be used in electronics manufacturing.

Carbon is a flexible matter that can form many structures through different atomic arrangements; Carbon can both form graphite (graphite), as well as a component of diamond or even, form the supermatter graphene. The repeating pattern of diamond can create multi-dimensional architecture, giving the strength of matter.

However, there are some carbon structures that are more difficult to fabricate than others, such as diamond glass.

The process of making diamond crystals: pressing graphite (graphite). Diamond glass making process: fullerene pressing.

" The synthesis of amorphous carbon materials with three-dimensional bonds has been a long-standing goal of science ," said new study author Yingwei Fei. ' The key is to find the right starting material, so that it can transform properly under pressure '.

When we increase the pressure on graphite, we make it harden into crystals, from which we get diamonds. I have thought about using diamond as diamond glass, but the truth is not so simple. The melting point of diamond is 4,227 degrees Celsius, too high to apply the material flexibly. The team needed a more chaotic carbon structure to make it easier to tune.

The determined team will use a structure of 60 carbon molecules arranged in the form of a hollow soccer ball, named 'fullerene' to carry out the experiment. The team heats the 'ball' so its shape becomes disordered, then uses a press to apply great pressure to the structure. The result: they created a glass that is as hard as diamond, whose manufacturing process yields numerous diamond crystals several millimeters in size.

Fullerene structure.

Looking closely at the structure, the team found that the new glass has a hardness of about 102 GigaPascals (GPa), higher than natural diamond but still not as strong as AM-III, a Chinese-based man-made glass with a touch hardness threshold 113 GPa.

The team also confirmed that super-hard glass is a better conductor of heat than any amorphous material. More importantly, scientists can synthesize them in a temperature environment of 900-1,000 degrees Celsius, the level of heat that industrial chains can achieve.

" Making glass with superior properties opens new doors for future applications ," said Fei. The researcher thinks that the production lines of super-hard diamond glass will soon reach large-scale.