Labs across the world have been competing to build “superhard” materials – and they are finally succeeding.
At the centre of our planet, the weight of billions of tonnes of rock pushing down from above creates crushing forces that are more than three million times the atmospheric pressure here on the surface. Yet on an unassuming laboratory worktop in northern Bavaria, physicist Natalia Dubrovinskaia is able to exceed even these formidable pressures several times over, with a device she can hold in the palm of her hands.
The recent successes could have wide ranging impacts from breakthroughs in medicine to changing our understanding of distant worlds
With a few precise turns of a couple of screws at the top of a small metal cylinder she can generate pressures more than three times greater than those found in the Earth’s core. Amazingly, she and her colleagues at the University of Bayreuth have discovered a super-material capable of withstanding these phenomenal forces. It is so hard that it is capable of leaving a dent in diamond crystals – long regarded as the hardest material in the world.
Her new substance is the culmination of decades of a sort of modern day alchemy that has seen scientists tweak and tinker with the chemical structures of substances to alter their properties. It is a journey that has involved many false starts and blind alleys, but the recent successes could have wide ranging impacts from breakthroughs in medicine to changing our understanding of distant worlds.
previously unknown state of matter. They hope to investigate what properties this gives osmium in the future.
These superhard nanodiamonds go beyond simply giving new hardened edges to cut through rock and metal. Such nanodiamonds in powdered form are finding uses in the cosmetics industry as they are highly absorbent, holding on to active substances. They are also readily absorbed by the skin, carrying those substances with them. The medical industry is also beginning to explore ways of using them to carry drugs such as for chemotherapy into difficult to reach areas of the body. Research has also shown nanodiamonds can promote the growth of bone and cartilage.
Most profoundly, this recent work could also help unlock some of the mysteries of our solar system. They have organised an international conference of experts next month where some of these new possibilities will be discussed. While at the centre of the Earth, pressure is thought to reach up to 360 GPa, the largest planet orbiting our sun, the gas giant Jupiter, is thought to have pressures up to 4,500 GPa at its core.
At these pressures, elements start to behave in strange ways. Hydrogen – normally a gas on Earth – starts to behave like a metal, for example, and becomes capable of conducting electricity. Dubrovinskaia and Dubrovinsky hope their superhard diamonds could help us create those kinds of cosmic conditions. “We could start to model the interior of giant planets or extraterrestrial super-Earths outside our solar system,” said Dubrovinskaia. “I think it is even more fascinating we can do this in something we can hold in our hands.”
BBC FUTURE.