The world's most expensive material costs $ 150 million a gram

New material developed by researchers in the UK is used to create the most accurate atomic clock.

Find out the most expensive material in the world

Designer Carbon Material, created by researchers at Oxford University last year, is shaped like a carbon atom cage containing a nitrogen atom inside . The team is using this material to make a portable small atomic clock that can help position satellites in unmanned vehicles to millimeters.

Designer Carbon Material is shaped like a carbon atom cage that surrounds a nitrogen atom. (Photo: The Telegraph).

Dr. Kyriakos Porfyrakis, a nanostructured scientist, has been researching how to produce this carbon material since 2001. " Imagine a miniature atomic clock that you can carry on your smartphone. This will be the next revolution for mobile phones, " commented Porfyrakis.

Carbon atoms exist in many forms, including diamonds and graphene. This form of obscure nickname is "buckyball" due to its shape and consists of 60 carbon atoms. 0.002g material recently sold for more than $ 33,000.

"At present, the atomic clock is the size of a room, and the new carbon nanotube will enable it to work on a chip and can be put into a cell phone," said Lucius Cary, director of the Oxford Technology Fund. SEIS, said.

Future cell phones can be equipped with atomic clocks to help position the satellite to be super accurate. Photo: Alamy.

"This technology will have many applications." The most obvious application is automatic control of vehicles, and if two cars are approaching each other in one lane, they know exactly what their direction is exactly one millimeter. Enough to avoid accidents, " Cary said.

Currently, satellite positioning only produces relative results within a few meters. This is a big challenge for unmanned vehicles. "Someday, every cellphone will be equipped with an atomic clock , " Cary said.