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Materials science

Diamond gets harder

Nature volume 510, pages 220–221 (2014)Cite this article

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Composite materials that incorporate diamond are among the hardest in the world, but fail under extreme conditions. A nanostructured form of diamond, made from onion-like carbon precursors, might overcome this problem. See Letter p.250

Diamond is a famously strong material with outstanding properties, such as high wear resistance and hardness. For this reason, it has long been used in cutting and drilling tools, but poor thermal stability has limited its application. On page 250 of this issue1, Huang et al. report the synthesis of 'nanotwinned' diamond, in which nanometre-scale crystals share some lattice points. The authors find that the resulting material is much harder and more thermally stable than naturally occurring diamond.

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Figure 1: Computer model of an onion carbon nanoparticle.

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  1. James Boland is in the Division of Earth Science and Resource Engineering, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Pullenvale, Queensland 4069, Australia.,

    James Boland

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  1. James Boland
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Correspondence to James Boland.

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Boland, J. Diamond gets harder. Nature 510, 220–221 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/510220a

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