Diamonds are prized for their hardness. In jewelry, they can last generations and resist scratches during day-to-day wear. As blades or drill bits, they can penetrate almost anything without getting destroyed. As a powder, diamonds polish up gemstones, metals and other materials.For most practical purposes, diamond is still the hardest material, said Richard Kaner, a materials chemist at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In the lab, materials scientists rely on a more precise measurement called the Vickers hardness test, which determines the hardness of a material based on the force required to indent it with a pointy tip. "Lonsdaleite is very puzzling," Asimow told Live Science. Until recently, it had been found in such tiny quantities, mostly inside meteorites, that it wasn't clear whether it counted as a stand-alone material or if it was just a defect in the standard diamond crystal structure.
Playing with diamond's nanoscale structure can also make a material that's harder than a regular diamond. A material that's made up of many tiny diamond crystals will be harder than a gem-quality diamond that's a single crystal, because the nanoscale grains lock up instead of moving past one another."Nanotwinned" diamonds, in which the grains form mirror-image patterns of each other, are reportedly double the hardness of regular diamonds.
Health Health Latest News, Health Health Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: SPACEdotcom - 🏆 92. / 67 Read more »