Super-Dense Forms of Carbon Could Out-Sparkle the Shiniest Diamond
Diamonds They're forever. mnlamberson via Flickr Girls might just have a new best friend. Diamonds are commonly known as one of the hardest (and shiniest) rocks on the planet, but new simulations show that three other stable forms of pure carbon would sparkle even more than diamonds. If we knew how to synthesize them, that is. Right now, these three configurations of carbon--named hP3, tI12 and tP12--exist only in computer simulations. But these simulations show that they are stable enough to shine in actuality if researchers could just figure out exactly how to make them. None would be quite as hard as a diamond, but they would be between 1.1 and 3.2 percent more dense. That translates into a higher refractive index, and thus a shinier shine and a sparklier sparkle. But the interesting properties of these three materials aren't confined to the display case at Tiffany's. The sims also indicate that all...