For centuries, diamond has been the reigning champion of hardness on Earth. However, a recent breakthrough in material science has led to the synthesis of a new substance, predicted to be 50 percent ...

In materials science, the hardness of a material measures its resistance to deformation by indentation, scratching or other physical actions. By this metric, plastics and soft tissues are said to be ...

Diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, but they’re also prized by oil drillers, road crews and experimental physicists for their unparalleled ability to bore, grind and cut. Now scientists have ...

It’s only a matter of time before a movie villain pulling off the crime of the century needs a cutting tool that is harder than anything else on Earth. Perhaps it’s a burglary that involves cutting ...

An international research team has produced a bulk, millimeter-scale hexagonal diamond in the laboratory, a crystal variant long theorized to rival or exceed the hardness of the cubic diamonds found ...

Ask most people what the hardest material on Earth is and they will probably answer “diamond”. Its name comes from the Greek word ἀδάμας (adámas) meaning “unbreakable” or “invincible” and is from ...