Diamond will always be a girl's best friend, but it may soon lose favour with industrial drillers.
The gemstone lost its title of the "world's hardest material" some time ago, to man-made nanomaterials of slightly greater toughness. Now a rare natural substance looks likely to leave them all far behind - at 58% harder than diamond.
Zicheng Pan at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and colleagues simulated how atoms in two substances believed to have promise as very hard materials would respond to the stress of a finely tipped probe pushing down on them.
The gemstone lost its title of the "world's hardest material" some time ago, to man-made nanomaterials of slightly greater toughness. Now a rare natural substance looks likely to leave them all far behind - at 58% harder than diamond.
Zicheng Pan at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and colleagues simulated how atoms in two substances believed to have promise as very hard materials would respond to the stress of a finely tipped probe pushing down on them.
(Source: New Scientist website)
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