“The BC8 stage of carbon at ambient conditions would be a new super-hard material that would likely be harder than diamond,” said Ivan Oleynik, a physics professor at the University of South Florida (USF) and senior author of a paper recently published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.The Extraterrestrial Connection”Despite numerous efforts to manufacture this evasive carbon crystalline stage, including previous National Ignition Facility (NIF) projects, it has yet to be observed,” stated Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientist Marius Millot, who likewise was included in the research. These celestial bodies, characterized by significant mass, experience enormous pressures reaching millions of environments in their deep interiors.Understanding BC8s Unique Properties”Consequently, the severe conditions dominating within these carbon-rich exoplanets might offer rise to structural types of carbon such as diamond and BC8,” Oleynik stated. The Path to Synthesizing BC8″The BC8 structure keeps this best tetrahedral nearest-neighbor shape, however without the cleavage aircrafts found in the diamond structure,” Eggert said, concurring with Oleynik that “the BC8 phase of carbon at ambient conditions would likely be much harder than diamond.
The difficulty is how to produce it on Earth.The eight-atom body-centered cubic (BC8) crystal is an unique carbon phase: not diamond, but really similar.”The BC8 stage of carbon at ambient conditions would be a brand-new super-hard product that would likely be harder than diamond,” said Ivan Oleynik, a physics teacher at the University of South Florida (USF) and senior author of a paper just recently published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.The Extraterrestrial Connection”Despite numerous efforts to manufacture this elusive carbon crystalline phase, including previous National Ignition Facility (NIF) campaigns, it has yet to be observed,” said Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) researcher Marius Millot, who also was involved in the research. These celestial bodies, defined by substantial mass, experience enormous pressures reaching millions of environments in their deep interiors.Understanding BC8s Unique Properties”Consequently, the extreme conditions prevailing within these carbon-rich exoplanets might provide rise to structural forms of carbon such as diamond and BC8,” Oleynik said. The Path to Synthesizing BC8″The BC8 structure preserves this ideal tetrahedral nearest-neighbor shape, however without the cleavage airplanes discovered in the diamond structure,” Eggert stated, concurring with Oleynik that “the BC8 phase of carbon at ambient conditions would likely be much tougher than diamond. “We forecasted that the post-diamond BC8 stage would be experimentally available only within a narrow high-pressure, high-temperature area of the carbon phase diagram.