2023-10-19 04:00:14
Is diamond, known for its exceptional hardness, really unrivaled in this area? The question deserves reflection, especially as science continues to evolve.
Image d’illustration Pixabay
In most practical applications, diamond remains the hardest material, says Richard Kaner, a chemist. chemistry, that is to say the science of…) materials (A material is a matter of natural or artificial origin that man shapes for…) at the University of California ( The University of California is an American university, founded in 1868, including…), Los Angeles (Los Angeles is a city in the United States located in southern California, on the Pacific coast….). Some theoretically harder materials exist, but they are not as practical to use. Paul Asimow, a geochemist at Caltech, points out that hardness in science does not equate to rigidity or resistance. Thus, a diamond is extremely hard, but moderately rigid and can break easily on its crystal faces.
To measure hardness, geologists use the Mohs scale, where the diamond scores a maximum of 10. In the laboratory, the Vickers hardness test is preferred (Vickers, originally founded as the Vickers Company in 1828, was a British manufacturer. ..), more precise. The diamond is made up of atoms (An atom (from the Greek ατομος, atomos, “that we cannot…) of carbon (Carbon is a chemical element of the crystallogen family, with the symbol C,… ) arranged in a cubic network, giving it its hardness.
A strong candidate for a material harder than diamond is lonsdaleite. Like diamond, it is composed of carbon atoms, but in a hexagonal crystal structure. Found primarily in meteorites, lonsdaleite has long been considered an anomaly, but recently large crystals have been discovered.
The nanoscale structures of diamonds can also surpass the hardness of a gemstone diamond. For example, “nanotwined” diamonds, made up of tiny crystals arranged in a mirror, are twice as hard as normal diamonds. .
Researchers aren’t just aiming for extreme hardness. Materials almost as hard as diamond but more economical are in development. So Kaner’s lab created super-hard metals, such as a combination of tungsten and boron. B and atomic number 5.), which can even scratch the diamond under certain conditions.
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