Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 087402 (2009) and Phys. Rev. B 79, 054111 (2009)

Graphite, a form of carbon made up of layered sheets of atoms, transforms into diamond — another form — only when subjected to high pressure. But Katsumi Tanimura at Osaka University in Japan, Hiromasa Ohnishi at the Institute of Materials Structure Science in Tsukuba and their colleagues have found that by firing femtosecond (10−15 s) laser pulses at a graphite wafer, they can cause five-nanometre-diameter patches of the flat layers to buckle and become three-dimensional.

The patches, which form a structure that exhibits bonding between layers but differs from a diamond lattice, have been termed 'diaphite' domains. The material is stable at room temperature if kept under ultra-high vacuum.