Tougher than armour, hard as diamond: China’s unbreakable crystal breakthrough
Chinese researchers have developed a new type of diamond that is significantly tougher than natural diamonds by incorporating carbon nanotubes. This breakthrough allows the material to maintain its extreme hardness while becoming resistant to shattering under impact.
Why it matters
This material science advancement could revolutionize industrial applications, such as high-performance cutting tools and armor, by overcoming the traditional trade-off between hardness and brittleness.
Chinese scientists have created a diamond with no Achilles’ heel – one that cannot be broken, even by a hard knock with a hammer – according to a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Synthesis.
While a diamond is the hardest natural material on Earth, it has a major weakness. It is brittle, like glass, and a sharp blow can shatter it. For years, scientists have tried to make diamonds tougher without losing their legendary hardness.
Typically, increasing one characteristic has meant sacrificing the other – seen as a reasonable trade-off for most applications, which include industrial uses such as in cutting and polishing tools.
The team – from the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beihang University – found a way around this limitation, building an internal support structure to boost a diamond’s toughness by six times while leaving its hardness unchanged.
Get smarter about the news
Sign up free for a feed built around what you actually care about, Dive Deeper research on any story, and the full text of every article.
Create free accountAlready have an account? Sign in