Discovery of carbon-based strongest and hardest amorphous material

Shuangshuang Zhang; Zihe Li; Kun Luo; Julong He; Yufei Gao; Alexander V Soldatov; Vicente Benavides; Kaiyuan Shi; Anmin Nie; Bin Zhang; Wentao Hu; Mengdong Ma; Yong Liu; Bin Wen; Guoying Gao; Bing Liu; Yang Zhang; Yu Shu; Dongli Yu; Xiang-Feng Zhou; Zhisheng Zhao; Bo Xu; Lei Su; Guoqiang Yang; Olga P Chernogorova; Yongjun Tian

doi:10.1093/nsr/nwab140

Discovery of carbon-based strongest and hardest amorphous material

Natl Sci Rev. 2021 Aug 5;9(1):nwab140. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwab140. eCollection 2022 Jan.

Authors

Shuangshuang Zhang¹, Zihe Li¹, Kun Luo¹, Julong He¹, Yufei Gao¹, Alexander V Soldatov¹, Vicente Benavides², Kaiyuan Shi³, Anmin Nie¹, Bin Zhang¹, Wentao Hu¹, Mengdong Ma¹, Yong Liu⁴, Bin Wen¹, Guoying Gao¹, Bing Liu¹, Yang Zhang¹, Yu Shu¹, Dongli Yu¹, Xiang-Feng Zhou¹, Zhisheng Zhao¹, Bo Xu¹, Lei Su³, Guoqiang Yang³, Olga P Chernogorova⁵, Yongjun Tian¹

Affiliations

¹ Center for High Pressure Science (CHiPS), State Key Laboratory of Metastable Materials Science and Technology, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China.
² Department of Engineering Sciences and Mathematics, Luleå University of Technology, Luleå SE-97187, Sweden.
³ Key Laboratory of Photochemistry, Institute of Chemistry, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory for Microstructural Material Physics of Hebei Province, School of Science, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao 066004, China.
⁵ Baikov Institute of Metallurgy and Materials Science, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow 119334, Russia.

Abstract

Carbon is one of the most fascinating elements due to its structurally diverse allotropic forms stemming from its bonding varieties (sp, sp ² and sp ³). Exploring new forms of carbon has been the eternal theme of scientific research. Herein, we report on amorphous (AM) carbon materials with a high fraction of sp ³ bonding recovered from compression of fullerene C₆₀ under high pressure and high temperature, previously unexplored. Analysis of photoluminescence and absorption spectra demonstrates that they are semiconducting with a bandgap range of 1.5-2.2 eV, comparable to that of widely used AM silicon. Comprehensive mechanical tests demonstrate that synthesized AM-III carbon is the hardest and strongest AM material known to date, and can scratch diamond crystal and approach its strength. The produced AM carbon materials combine outstanding mechanical and electronic properties, and may potentially be used in photovoltaic applications that require ultrahigh strength and wear resistance.

Keywords: amorphous carbon; phase transition; semiconductor; ultrahard; ultrastrong.