Pure carbon can take a great variety of forms. Diamond, carbon nanotubes and graphene—the last the subject of the 2010 Nobel Prize in Physics—all have unique physical and chemical qualities and applications to technology. Now evidence is mounting that there is yet another crystal structure to add to carbon’s catalogue of wonders: a material that could find applications in mechanical components whose hardness varies depending on the pressure to which they are exposed.
This new type of carbon was first observed in 2003, when researchers placed graphite, a stacking of chicken-wire-shaped networks of carbon atoms, under high pressure at room temperature. Under this “cold” compression, the graphite began to assume a hybrid form, between that of graphene and of diamond, but its exact nature was unknown.
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