Science / Medicine : A Weekly Roundup of News, Features and Commentary : Improving on the Diamond

An Australian physicist says he has manufactured a material--a form of diamond--that is the hardest known substance.

“You can write your name (with it) on a naturally occurring diamond,” said David McKenzie, a Sydney University physicist. “It’s important because it proves another form of diamond exists and it could have important commercial applications” because it is largely transparent and resistant to chemical attack.

He said the material has an amorphous or “glassy structure” harder than any naturally occurring diamond with its crystalline matrix.

“It’s structure overall is not regular like a natural diamond. Instead, it is a tangled network which makes the glassy diamond film harder than the crystalline diamond because it is more resistant to distortion,” McKenzie said.