Diamond is no longer natures hardest

material
itvnews.tv / Tuesday, 17 February 2009 16:09

London: Diamond will always be a womans

best friend but the gemstone is no longer the
worlds hardest material, according to
scientists.
Instead, a rare natural substance, called
lonsdaleite, which is made from carbon
atoms just like diamond, has emerged as 58
per cent harder than the gemstone,
according to a report in the New Scientist.
An international team, led by Zicheng Pan at
Shanghai Jiao Tong University, simulated how
atoms in two substances believed to have
promise as very hard materials would respond
to the stress of a finely tipped probe pushing
down on them.
The simulation revealed that the first one,
wurtzite boron nitride, withstood 18 per cent
more stress than diamond, while the second,
the mineral lonsdaleite, 58 per cent more.
Rare mineral lonsdaleite is sometimes formed
when meteorites containing graphite hit Earth,
while wurtzite boron nitride is formed during
volcanic eruptions that produce very high
temperatures and pressures.
If confirmed, however, wurtzite boron nitride
may turn out most useful of the two, because it
is stable in oxygen at higher temperatures than
diamond.
And, according to the scientists, this makes it
ideal to place on the tips of cutting and drilling
tools operating at high temperatures, or as
corrosion resistant films on the surface of a
space vehicle, for example. Paradoxically,
wurtzite boron nitrides hardness appears to
come from the flexibility of the bonds between
the atoms that make it up.
When its stressed some bonds tend to re-
orientate themselves by about 90 to relieve the
tension.
Although diamond undergoes a similar
process, something about the structure of
wurtzite boron nitride makes it nearly 80 per
cent stronger after the process takes place, the
studys co-author Changfeng Chen of
University of Nevada wrote in the Physical
Review Letters journal.
-PTI

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