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Q-carbon harder than diamond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2018

Jagdish Narayan*
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7907, USA
Siddharth Gupta
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7907, USA
Anagh Bhaumik
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7907, USA
Ritesh Sachan
Affiliation:
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC 27695-7907, USA Materials Science Division, Army Research Office, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
Filippo Cellini
Affiliation:
Advanced Science Research Center, CUNY, New York, NY 10031, USA CUNY Graduate Center, Ph.D. Program in Physics, New York, NY 10031, USA
Elisa Riedo
Affiliation:
Advanced Science Research Center, CUNY, New York, NY 10031, USA CUNY Graduate Center, Ph.D. Program in Physics, New York, NY 10031, USA Department of Physics, CUNY-City College of New York, New York, NY 10031, USA
*
Address all correspondence to Jagdish Narayan at narayan@ncsu.edu
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Abstract

A new phase of carbon named Q-carbon is found to be over 40% harder than diamond. This phase is formed by nanosecond laser melting of amorphous carbon and rapid quenching from the super-undercooled state. Closely packed atoms in molten metallic carbon are quenched into Q-carbon with 80–85% sp3 and the rest sp2. The number density of atoms in Q-carbon can vary from 40% to 60% higher than diamond cubic lattice, as the tetrahedra packing efficiency increases from 70% to 80%. Using this semiempirical approach, the corresponding increase in Q-carbon hardness is estimated to vary from 48% to 70% compared to diamond.

Type
Research Letters
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2018 

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