News - Researchers create material that is almost impossible to break

An international team led by researchers from the Center for Science at Extreme Conditions at the University of Edinburgh have made a breakthrough, synthesizing carbon and nitrogen precursors to create carbon nitrides, which are tougher than cubic boron nitride—currently the second hardest material behind diamond, New Atlas reports. “These materials provide strong incentive to bridge the gap between high-pressure materials synthesis and industrial applications,” said Dominique Laniel from the University of Edinburgh. The team, which also included materials experts from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, and Linkoping University, Sweden, achieved the feat by subjecting different forms of carbon nitrogen precursors to pressures of 70-135 gigapascals (or a million times our atmospheric pressure) while simultaneously heating them to more than 1,500 °C (2732 °F). The atomic arrangement was then examined via X-ray beam at the European Synchrotron Research Facility in France, the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Germany, and the Advanced Photon Source in the US. The team believes this breakthrough paves the way for a multitude of uses, including protective coatings for vehicles and spacecraft, powerful cutting tools, and photodetectors. The incompressible carbon nitride compounds were also found to have photoluminescence, piezoelectric and high energy density, able to store a large amount of energy in a small amount of mass.