DHAKA: Researcher Jay Narayan and his colleagues at North Carolina State University have discovered a new form of solid carbon, called Q-carbon, which allows them to produce diamond-related structures at room temperature and at ambient atmospheric pressure in air.

Graphite and diamonds are two solid forms or phases of carbon and this would be a new form that researchers believe is harder than diamonds.

“We’ve now created a third solid phase of carbon,” Narayan, who authored three papers including one in the Journal of Applied Physics on the work with doctoral student Anagh Bhaumik, said in a statement. “The only place it may be found in the natural world would be possibly in the core of some planets.”

Along with being harder that diamonds, Q-carbon has been shown to be ferromagnetic – meaning it’s easily magnetized – and glows when exposed to low levels of energy.

“Q-carbon’s strength and low work-function, its willingness to release electrons, make it very promising for developing new electronic display technologies,” Narayan said,

He further said that Q-carbon could also be used to create a variety of single-crystal diamond objects.

“This discovery opens a new chapter in synthesis and processing of nano-diamond and micro-diamond for a variety of applications ranging from abrasive powders, novel catalytic properties, smart displays, myriads of biomedical and microelectronic, and nano-electronic applications,” the researchers wrote in another study on the discovery in the journal APL Materials.

But the researchers acknowledged there remain plenty of questions regarding Q-carbon, adding that they were “still in the early stages of understanding how to manipulate it.”

“We know a lot about diamond, so we can make diamond nanodots,” Narayan said. “We don’t yet know how to make Q-carbon nanodots or microneedles. That’s something we’re working on.”

BDST: 1502 HRS, DEC 04, 2015
SR/SMS