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New Material Harder Than Diamond
h4x0r-3l337 writes "Diamond is no longer the hardest substance known to man. Scientists have created a new material, called "aggregated diamond nanorods" by compressing carbon-60 under high heat. From the article: 'The hardness of a material is measured by its isothermal bulk modulus. Aggregated diamond nanorods have a modulus of 491 gigapascals (GPa), compared with 442 GPa for conventional diamond.'"
A butter knife made entirely out of THAT!
So I guess this is what she's going to want on her finger now.
Diamonds are not forever
26 August 2005
Physicists in Germany have created a material that is harder than diamond. Natalia Dubrovinskaia and colleagues at the University of Bayreuth made the new material by subjecting carbon-60 molecules to immense pressures. The new form of carbon, which is known as aggregated diamond nanorods, is expected to have many industrial applications (App. Phys. Lett. 87 083106).
The hardness of a material is measured by its isothermal bulk modulus. Aggregated diamond nanorods have a modulus of 491 gigapascals (GPa), compared with 442 GPa for conventional diamond. Dubrovinskaia and two of her co-workers - Leonid Dubrovinky and Falko Langenhorst - have patented the process used to make the new material.
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.
The group created the ADNRs by compressing the carbon-60 molecules to 20 GPa, which is nearly 200 times atmospheric pressure, while simultaneously heating to 2500 Kelvin. "The synthesis was possible due to a unique 5000-tonne multianvil press at Bayerisches Geoinstitut in Bayreuth that is capable of reaching pressures of 25 GPa and temperatures of 2700 K at the same time," Dubrovinskaia told PhysicsWeb.
The Bayreuth team measured the properties of the samples with a diamond anvil cell at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility at Grenoble in France. 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.
In addition to working out why the new material is so hard, the Bayreuth team also hope to exploit its industrial potential. "We have developed a concept for innovative technology to produce the novel material in industrial-scale quantities and now we are looking for partners in order to realize our ideas," said Dubrovinskaia.
Supply and demand has nothing to do with the diamond market. As I understand it, the prices are kept artificially high by the diamond cartels and their storehouses of stones.
So when are we going to see a General Products hull constructed out of this?
--
BMO - Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Kzinti
I guess it should be better defined. It is talking about two different diamond states. 1) There is the natural, mined diamond you get from the Earth. 2) This artificial, human-created diamond-type substance that is made from diamond. In essense they are both just really hard carbon structures, with different atomic states.
Long time ago, when I was student, I bought a very good russian thermodynamics book (Kirillin) where they said Borazon synthetic material be harder than diamond. It is a pity Wikipedia does not agree with that fact.
Of course, the thermodynamic process to achieve it was far expensive. Required very high pressure and temperatures.
OK, so obviously this could be used as "better-than-diamonds" for industrial purposes - grinding and such. But it seems to me that the improvement is only modest, and that this does not open up whole new frontiers of exciting materials - or am I completely wrong here? Is there some magical "limit" that was exceeded by this? If there *IS* a magical limit somewhere, what is it?
Black holes are where God divided by zero
100000000 Pascals. It's a unit of pressure. It's equal to 1000 bar or 29,529.99 inches of mercury
Um, no. Diamonds currently retain value as expensive the same way Oil does. It's controlled by a company who's got overwhelming control over the supply, and thus, can charge any price they want for the goods.
That being said, synthetic diamonds have been on the market for a while now. In fact, my sister just bought a ring with one in it.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
And here I thought it was some cool new programming language (presumably a billion times better than old fashioned Pascal...)
Probably not. Hardness does not equate to tensile strength. Tensile strength is what you need for a space elevator.
You'd probably still use carbon, but nanotubes rather than nanorods.
Why'd you marry such shallow, pathetic women?
What -- you mean there's some other kind?
It is, after all, a measure of strength in compression, which is completely different from hardness.
How about giving us figures for hardness? Like the Brinell Hardness Number or the results of the Rockwell hardness test?
-Shaunak
491 gigapascals.... Wow!!! WTF is a gigapascal?
:= 0 := giga + 1;
program gigapascal(output);
procedure WriteResponseHeader;
begin
writeln('content-type: text/html');
writeln
end;
begin
WriteResponseHeader;
writeln('[HTML]');
writeln('[HEAD]');
writeln('[TITLE]GigaPascal[/TITLE>');
writeln('[/HEAD]');
writeln('[BODY]');
giga
while [ i [less than] 1000000000 ] DO:
giga
writeln('[BIG] This is a Gigapascal! How the hell are you? [/BIG]');
endfor;
writeln('[/BODY]');
writeln('[/HTML]')
end.
[edit requires to get slashdot to accept this]
Any questions?
This is from the article:
The group created the ADNRs by compressing the carbon-60 molecules to 20 GPa, which is nearly 200 times atmospheric pressure, while simultaneously heating to 2500 Kelvin. "The synthesis was possible due to a unique 5000-tonne multianvil press at Bayerisches Geoinstitut in Bayreuth that is capable of reaching pressures of 25 GPa and temperatures of 2700 K at the same time," Dubrovinskaia told PhysicsWeb.
I was reading that and I thought, 200 atmospheres? What do they need the 5000 ton multianvil press for? They messed it up. 20 GPa is 200000 atmospheres, not 200.
For a good description of Hardness measuring methods, See this page
-Shaunak
if their wives' rings costs $300:
a) your friends aren't rich
b) you can scratch up the rings with normal sandpaper
There's no way these guys can claim priority here. It completely stretches all notions of credulity. I mean, Superman has been transforming coal into diamonds with his bare hands for nearly 60 years now (first mention Action Comics #115; 1947). Together with his optical super-powers, in this case I'm of course referring to what is simplistically referred to as his "heat vision", it's clear that Superman could generate the required pressure and heat with almost no effort. He probably discovered this new diamond stuff by accident when he was like 8 or something. Jeez, I can't believe the crap that makes it through peer review these days.
We're (laregly) made of carbon. Diamonds, the (formerly) hardest substance known to exist, is made of carbon. This new material is also made of carbon.
Carbon is also the basis for buckyballs, nanotubes, and recently, nanofabric.
What is it about carbon that's so special? Can these things be done with other elements, like nitrogen? Is it just because we have an oil (carbon) based economy, or what?
Seems like all the interesting stuff in materials physics in early 2000's is ALL CARBON!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I guess a pretty simple way to put it would be like this:
butter and ice cream are both essentially different forms of milk, but you don't see people walking around with cones full of butter do you?
If you do, that's pretty gross.
Just like driving a car:
(D) to go forward
(R) to go backward
Someone give this guy a wedgie. He remembers how to program in Pascal.
cat
It's a pressure unit. 1 Pascal = 1 Newton / square meter On Earth, an object of ~ 0.98 kg, standing on a 1 square centimeter base ( ~ an iron rod 1.3 meters long, 1.13 cm diameter ) , would exert because of its weight a pressure of about 0.1 megapascal. Typical atmospheric pressure ~ 1013 hPa = about 0.1 MPa too. 1GPa is 10000 as much as in these examples (i. e imagine the same iron rod 13 km long). By the way, compare the first two examples, and you'll see that an astronaut in a vacuum might feel not very comfortable.
Actually, diamonds are only metastable at standard temperature and pressure.
Eventually, they convert to graphite.
Granted, this will take a (long) while, but it's really more accurate to say graphite is forever.
I don't know about the structure of the ADNR, but it might be even more prone to conversion or sublimation than diamond.
"Most (if not all) of the diamond in diamond coated drills are produced through this process"
You were OK, sortof. It's not the GE process, but something entirely new (relatively).
Diamond coatings are done through a process called Vapor Deposition. It's a low pressure process, done at Standard Pressure, using a hot carbon rich gas, a reducing atmosphere, and a cold substrate (the thing you're coating).
It's an entirely new process, discovered entirely by accident by someone trying to figure out why certain welds were a bitch to grind smooth. It turned out that there were microscopic diamonds in the welds, and that was why.
--
BMO
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Most (if not all) of the diamond in diamond coated drills are produced through this process.
There are several processes for putting diamond onto the lap/saw/drill. Some diamonds (natural or synthetic) are brazed onto the material, many saws and diamond wheels actually have diamond impregnated metal so as it wears, cutting action is not degraded and the cheapest method is really close to gluing the damn things to the material. In this instance, it is almost always synthetic. In gem faceting, diamond powder is actually sprinkled onto a lap and rolled into it or used as a slurry.
But as far as "most" goes, "most" diamond tools are not diamond at all but silicon carbide. And even then, it depends on the application for the lap, drill or saw. Depending on the material you are cutting or polishing, natural diamond is preferred to synthetic. This is the case when polishing diamonds and sapphires.
Also, there are a number of "fake" diamonds in the market already, none of which have had any impact on the diamond as a gem. The most common are CZ (cubic zirconia) and Moissanite which is a compressed carbon, also known as silicon carbide, and naturally occurring in meteorites but made for the market in labs. Other "brands" of fake diamonds are usually Moissanite. In diamond testing, cz fails thermal tests, Moissanite passes but fails on conductivity.
R(k)
> Why'd you marry such shallow, pathetic women?
What -- you mean there's some other kind?
I think the AC was suggesting that people should broaden their horizons.
.....
Wow, I didn't know Comic Book Guy lurked on Slashdot.....
Perhaps "A Sphere of Solid Neutronium greater than it's Schwartzchild radius without the effects of gravitational tides and/or variances in the background energy state of the universe in relation to Gauge symmetries is forever"?
But actually, nobody would remember that, cause it's stupid.
The first rule of USENET is you do not talk about USENET.
Finally, I'll be able to drill into that 10ft diamond I found in the garden.
I'm sure there's gold in the center of it!
Unfortunately, I am not Wil Wheaton
two words: big boobs
/pro
This one goes to 11?
Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
I don't know what to be more disturbed about. a. the fact that you knew which comic it was in or b. that I immediately had to figure out a Google to prove to check your facts! Superman's Powers
That is exactly what he means and your girlfriend is correct. The problem is why should they be called anything but diamonds? Synthetic means fake to many people. A man made diamond is a diamond. What the Diamond makers wants are the same rules as the pearl growers have. A pearl is a pearl.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The group created the ADNRs by compressing the carbon-60 molecules to 20 GPa, which is nearly 200 times atmospheric pressure
200 atmospheres? That's not much pressure. SCUBA divers regularly put more pressure than that in tanks they wear strapped to their backs.
According to the "units" program on my laptop, 20 GPa is 197,384.65 atmospheres. 200 *thousand* atomospheres... that makes more sense.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Yes.
Clearly, they are the same.
I often try to pick up girls by handing them large chunks of coal since it's a diamond, but in a different state. For some reason, they don't seem to go for it. Odd.
Strangely enough, no one will eat my burgers cooked over graphite (and quite frankly, graphite fires are a bit difficult to keep lit).
Carbon is one of the most versitile elements on the planet either alone or combined with other elements. Its quite worthwhile to consider a different state of it a completely different thing.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
We've been doing that for years. It's called "carpentry" and it uses these cool bio-tech machines called "trees" to convert atomospheric carbon and water into complex hydrocarbon structures known as "wood".
You have to have a source of trace minerals (typically through a "ground" or "earth" connection) but the majority of the created structures are built from atmospheric carbon and hydrogen from water. The created material is incredibly useful and can be formed with little effort using commonly available tools.
Oh, and the best part is, the process is entirely solar-powered. There's a little reverse carbon leakage when solar energy is not available (a condition we call "night") but it's negligible.
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
A butter knife made entirely out of THAT!
You TERRORIST! Won't anyone please think of the children?
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
A gross distortion — about oil. You are basically right about diamonds. While he may overhype matters somewhat, Epstein's classic book documents how the diamond cartel has been ruthless in its limit of supply to a value-sustaining level of marketing-created demand. If supply were to float free, diamonds would drop sharply in price. Furthermore, their intrinsic value within the economy isn't that high-- industrial use mainly. If the US government banned the sale of diamonds for non-industrial uses, DeBeers (and a chunk of the jewelry industry) would collapse, but the overall economy would be OK. Banning the industrial uses would hurt more, and probably trigger a recession, but not a total economic collapse.
Oil, on the other hand, has many uses -- fuel, plastics, fertilizers, and chemical feedstocks probably heading the list. Furthermore, in economic terms, there are NO elasticly substitutable replacements for it, and an exponentially growing demand as China and India become fully industrialized. Since conventional biodiesel relies on petroleum fertilizers and machinery, the "best" elastic replacement is sythetic petroleum from coal, probably becoming competitive in the $120/bbl to $200/bbl range. In the good (?!?) news, this means base (untaxed) gas prices can't do much more than triple from current levels, so we shouldn't go over $10/gallon for gasoline for about 30 years after peak oil (given the vast US coal reserves). The bad news is that the ecologic impacts are higher... which might require higher gas taxes to deal with the impact.
In addition, OPEC (and other cartel) quotas are not the primary limit on supply at this point — although they may be getting rich off it for the moment. Supply today is mainly limited the finite known reserves (with new discoveries having peaked pre-1970), and by current production rate limits (which is why a hurricane in the Gulf caused a price spike of oil to over $70/bbl). OPEC is pretty much pumping as hard as it can now.
Diamond prices are indeed deeply controlled by deliberate supply controls, and there have been times when oil prices were influenced that way, but right now, the price of oil is pure unrestricted supply and demand... where supply is running out.
(Why, yes, I am one of those "Peak Oil" kooks. Pleased ta meetcha.)
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Someone give this guy a wedgie. He remembers how to program in Pascal.
It's too bad; Pascal was a good choice for an instructional language. Straightforward syntax and usable for real-world problems.
I think that the move to Java for introductory programming classes is very depressing. What people wanted was a "safe C", so that beginners didn't have to worry about bizarre misbehavior in their programs. Java, however, is a horrible choice for a teaching language, as it brings an entire raft of crap along with it, including all the OO crap, masses of library code, fat abstraction layers, and so forth. I've seen people take intro programming classes in Java and come out with some vague memories of some Java terminology, but not having learned anything about algorithms or structured thinking because they're busy struggling with all of the nonsense in Java.
The older I get, the more I think that Knuth is right about wanting CS classes to be taught in assembly.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.