New ultrahard diamond glass synthesized
It is the hardest known glass with the highest thermal conductivity among
all glass materials.

Date:
November 24, 2021
Source:
Carnegie Institution for Science
Summary:
An international research team that synthesized a new ultrahard form
of carbon glass with a wealth of potential practical applications
for devices and electronics. It is the hardest known glass with
the highest thermal conductivity among all glass materials.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Carnegie's Yingwei Fei and Lin Wang were part of an international research
team that synthesized a new ultrahard form of carbon glass with a wealth
of potential practical applications for devices and electronics. It is
the hardest known glass with the highest thermal conductivity among all
glass materials.

Their findings are published in Nature.


========================================================================== Function follows form when it comes to understanding the properties
of a material. How its atoms are chemically bonded to each other, and
their resulting structural arrangement, determines a material's physical qualities - - both those that are observable by the naked eye and those
that are only revealed by scientific probing.

Carbon is unrivaled in its ability to form stable structures --
alone and in combination with other elements. Some forms of carbon are
highly organized, with repeating crystalline lattices. Others are more disordered, a quality termed amorphous.

The type of bond holding a carbon-based material together determine its hardness. For example, soft graphite has two-dimensional bonds and hard
diamond has three-dimensional bonds.

"The synthesis of an amorphous carbon material with three-dimensional
bonds has been a long-standing goal," explained Fei. "The trick is to
find the right starting material to transform with the application of pressure." "For decades Carnegie researchers have been at the forefront
of the field, using laboratory techniques to generate extreme pressures
to produce novel materials or mimic the conditions found deep inside
planets," added Carnegie Earth and Planets Laboratory Director Richard
Carlson.

Because of its extremely high melting point, it's impossible to use
diamond as the starting point to synthesize diamond-like glass. However,
the research team, led by Jilin University's Bingbing Liu and Mingguang
Yao -- a former Carnegie visiting scholar -- made their breakthrough by
using a form of carbon composed of 60 molecules arranged to form a hollow
ball. Informally called a buckyball, this Nobel Prize-winning material was heated just enough to collapse its soccer-ball-like structure to induce disorder before turning the carbon to crystalline diamond under pressure.

The team used a large-volume multi-anvil press to synthesize
the diamond-like glass. The glass is sufficient large for
characterization. Its properties were confirmed using a variety of
advanced, high-resolution techniques for probing atomic structure.

"The creation of a glass with such superior properties will
open the door to new applications," Fei explained. "The
use of new glass materials hinges on making large pieces,
which has posed a challenge in the past. The comparatively
lower temperature at which we were able to synthesize this new
ultrahard diamond glass makes mass production more practical." ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
Carnegie_Institution_for_Science. Note: Content may be edited for style
and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Yuchen Shang, Zhaodong Liu, Jiajun Dong, Mingguang Yao, Zhenxing
Yang,
Quanjun Li, Chunguang Zhai, Fangren Shen, Xuyuan Hou,
Lin Wang, Nianqiang Zhang, Wei Zhang, Rong Fu, Jianfeng
Ji, Xingmin Zhang, He Lin, Yingwei Fei, Bertil Sundqvist,
Weihua Wang, Bingbing Liu. Ultrahard bulk amorphous carbon
from collapsed fullerene. Nature, 2021; 599 (7886): 599 DOI:
10.1038/s41586-021-03882-9 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/11/211124153852.htm

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