Diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring material on Earth, but a supercomputer just modeled stuff thats even harder.
Like normal diamonds, super-diamonds are made from carbon atoms.
This specific phase of carbon, composed of eight atoms, should be stable at ambient conditions.
An artist’s impression of the recent work revealing a distinct carbon phase.Illustration: Mark Meamber/LLNL
In other words, it could exist in an Earth laboratory.
The specific phase, called BC8, is a high-pressure phase typically found in silicon and germanium.
And as the new model suggests, carbon can also exist in this particular phase.
Frontierthe fastest and first exascale supercomputermodeled the evolution of billions of carbon atoms put under immense pressures.
The supercomputer predicted that BC8 carbon is 30% more resistant to compression than plain ol diamonds.
The teams research describing the super-hard stuff was recentlypublishedin The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.
But we believe it may exist in carbon-rich exoplanets.
Its not the first potential evidence of ultra-hard materials existing in the depths of space.
Space-based observatorieslike the Webb Space Telescopeare revealing carbon-rich exoplanets like never before.
It may be possible to grow such super-diamonds in the lab environment.
That research will be done through NIFsDiscovery Scienceprogram.
So when it comes to lab-grown super-diamonds, my advice is to not hold your breath.
But things could be heating up in materials science.
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