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Chinese scientists have created the most durable glass in the world that can scratch even a diamond

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Chinese experts conducting active experiments with carbon in many of its manifestations have developed glass with such hardness that it can even scratch such an especially hard material as natural diamond. It is about this unique discovery that will be discussed in today's material.

Scientists have developed a new, highly durable form of glass. Strong enough to scratch the surface of a diamond.
Scientists have developed a new, highly durable form of glass. Strong enough to scratch the surface of a diamond.
Scientists have developed a new, highly durable form of glass. Strong enough to scratch the surface of a diamond.

A series of experiments and new material created

The development of specialists from the Middle Kingdom became known from a message published in South China Morning Post. This transparent material, in addition to its phenomenal strength, also has the ability to act as a semiconductor.

These properties open up exciting opportunities for open material in the field of photovoltaic energy.

This is how the created material got the name AM-III, which in its essence is quite similar to both artificial and natural diamonds. But unlike diamonds, where carbon atoms are located in a perfect lattice structure,

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AM-III has a disorganized structure, in which atoms and molecules are not aligned. Such materials are called amorphous.

So amorphous materials also include plastics, gels, as well as such a common material as glass, which is not particularly durable.

Experts from Yangshan University decided to significantly increase the strength of glass and for this they carried out numerous experiments with the arrangement of atoms and molecules in the shape of a soccer ball, known as fullerenes.

So in laboratory experiments, scientists subjected fullerenes to increasing heating and pressure. As a result, they (fullerenes) were deformed and mixed as a result of decay, and the engineers kept raising the temperature and observing what kind of material they ended up with.

So, after conducting a huge number of experiments, scientists received material called AM-III.

Images show scratches on the surface of natural diamond created by a new hard material known as AM-III. Courtesy of the authors / Creative Commons
Images show scratches on the surface of natural diamond created by a new hard material known as AM-III. Courtesy of the authors / Creative Commons

Further testing of the AM-III showed that it has a phenomenal 113 GPa Vickers strength. Thus, ordinary mild steel has a hardness of only 9 GPa, while natural diamonds have a hardness of 70 to 100 GPa.

A full range of mechanical tests showed that the AM-III obtained in the laboratory was the most durable amorphous material of all known today, which turned out to be able to even scratch diamond.

In addition, scientists have also established that the material is a semiconductor with a band gap in the range of 1.5 - 2.2 eV. Which, in principle, is comparable to the used amorphous silicon.

This combination of mechanical strength and conductivity opens up broad prospects for the material in using them in photovoltaic technologies, for example, in new generation solar panels.

The scientists shared the results of the work done on the pages of the National Science Review portal.

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