Chinese researchers managed to create, as they claim, the first pure hexagonal diamond, a rare and theoretically extremely durable form of diamond that has been found in meteorites originating from fragments of dwarf planets.
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Natural diamond, also known as cubic diamond, has long been considered the hardest natural material on Earth. In fact, the Mohs hardness scale, which measures a mineral's resistance to scratching, uses diamond as the highest reference point. It is called "cubic" because the carbon atoms are arranged in a regular cubic structure. In contrast, in hexagonal diamond, the carbon atoms form a lattice of hexagons, similar to a honeycomb.
The new study, published March 4 in the journal Nature, tackled the problem by creating fairly clean samples of hexagonal diamond about 1.5 millimeters in diameter, large enough to measure their properties.
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The researchers found that hexagonal diamond is both more inflexible and harder than cubic, while also exhibiting much greater resistance to oxidation. This means it can withstand much higher temperatures without its surface being altered by the reaction with oxygen — a characteristic important for applications such as drilling.
The study also provides significant evidence that hexagonal diamond is indeed a real material. According to the researchers, “structural and spectroscopic analyses, combined with extensive molecular dynamics simulations, clearly confirm the identity of HD (hexagonal diamond).”
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The hexagonal diamond could improve technological processes and tools that today rely on cubic diamond, such as drilling and cutting tools, abrasive coatings for polishing, as well as heat dissipation systems in electronic devices. At the same time, its presence in meteorites can provide valuable information about their formation and origin, offering more data on the history and evolution of our solar system.
