While studying diamonds inside an ancient meteorite, scientists have found a strange, never-before-seen microscopic structure, which the researchers describe as having an interlocking form of graphite and diamond, with unique properties that could one day be used to develop a superfast charging system or new types of electronics.
Scientists are studying the diamond structures inside the “Canyon Diablo” meteorite that collided with the Earth 50,000 years ago and was first discovered in Arizona in 1891. The diamonds in this meteorite are not the type most people know, according to “Live Science.”
The difference between ordinary diamonds and meteorites
Most of the known diamonds formed 90 miles (150 kilometers) below the Earth’s surface, where temperatures rise to more than 1,093 degrees Celsius, and the carbon atoms within these diamonds are arranged in cubic shapes.
By contrast, the diamond inside the Canyon Diablo meteorite is known as “lonsdaleite” after British crystallographer Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, first female professor at University College London, and has a hexagonal crystal structure.
These diamonds only form under extremely high pressures and temperatures, and although scientists have succeeded in making ‘lonsdaleite’ in the lab using gunpowder and compressed air to propel graphite discs at 24,100 km/h, natural lonsdaleite only forms when asteroids strike Earth at extremely high speeds. .
Many uses for new diamonds
While studying lonsdaleite in the meteorite, the researchers found something strange. Instead of the pure hexagonal structures they were expecting, the researchers found the growth of another carbon-based material called graphene entangled with diamond.
These growths are known as diaphites, and within the meteorite, they form in a particularly interesting layering pattern
The new material has many potential applications because it is light as a feather, as strong as diamond, transparent and highly conductive; A million times thinner than a human hair, it could one day be used in more targeted drugs, smaller electronics with very fast charging speeds, or faster, more curved technology.