Groundbreaking Discovery: Scientists Create Rare Meteorite Diamond Twice as Hard as Earth Diamonds!

Scientists have made an exciting breakthrough by creating the first sizeable meteorite diamond, also known as lonsdaleite. This new type of diamond is thought to be even harder than the diamonds we typically find on Earth. Reported on July 30 in the journal Nature, this innovation uses a high-pressure, high-temperature method to produce small disks of this ultrahard diamond. These could potentially replace standard diamonds in various fields, including drilling tools and electronics.

Diamonds are famous for being the hardest naturally occurring substances. Each carbon atom in their structure forms bonds with four others, creating a sturdy arrangement of tetrahedra. However, in the 1960s, researchers proposed a different structure for diamonds. They found small crystals of this new structure in the Canyon Diablo meteorite, which landed in Arizona about 50,000 years ago.

Unlike the usual cubic diamonds, lonsdaleite has a hexagonal structure, featuring two different bond lengths between carbon atoms. This unique layout could increase its hardness by 58%. However, creating large enough samples for study has been tough due to contamination from other forms of carbon.

Wenge Yang and his team at the Center for High Pressure Science and Technology Advanced Research in Beijing aimed to replicate the high pressure of a meteorite impact in a lab. Using a diamond anvil cell, they compressed graphite. They then applied laser heat to stabilize the new carbon arrangement.

“Under around 20 GPa of pressure, graphite layers shift and bond, creating a hexagonal diamond structure,” Yang explained. Their tests confirmed the presence of this new diamond type, but it remains somewhat impure.

Soumen Mandal, a physicist from the University of Cardiff who didn’t take part in the study, noted it’s a promising first step. More refined samples are needed to explore the new diamond’s physical properties. Current tests indicate it’s at least as hard as regular diamonds, but larger samples will be essential for comprehensive evaluations.

Yang’s team envisions using hexagonal diamonds in industries such as precision machinery and electronics in about a decade. “Our ultimate goal is to produce larger samples tailored for various applications,” Yang added.

This diamond creation process highlights not only scientific ingenuity but also opens new doors for technology. The future promises exciting advancements as researchers work to harness the potential of hexagonal diamonds. For more on diamond’s properties, check out this Live Science article.

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