Aggregated Diamond Nanorods, the Densest and Least Compressible Form of Carbon

by Natalia Dubrovinskaia et al. Applied Physics Letters, 22 Aug 2005 We report the synthesis of aggregated diamond nanorods (ADNRs) from fullerene C₆₀ at 20(1) GPa and 2200 °C using a multianvil apparatus. Individual diamond nanoroads are of 5–20 nm in diameter and longer than 1 µm. The x-ray and measured density of ADNRs is ~0.2%–0.4% higher than that of usual diamond. The extremely high isothermal bulk modulus K_T=491(3) GPa was obtained by in situ x-ray diffraction study. Thus, ADNRs is the densest among all carbon materials and it has the lowest so far experimentally determined compressibility. Read more