Buckyballs are football-shaped nanospheres made of sixty carbon atoms each (hence called C60). Usually, C60 remains stable for up to 25 GPa of pressure. But at temperatures higher than 800 C, it gets compressed at 5 GPa to form a disordered carbon material that has no clear internal structure. The reason why this happens is that the carbon atoms inside fullerenes change from sp2 to sp3 hybridization. The ratio of sp3 to sp2 carbons affect the physical structure. The hardest among these amorphous materials made by an international team of researchers was created at 1200˚C. Its tetragonally-arranged network of sp3 carbons is so hard it scratches diamond. However, unlike diamond, which is a strong insulator, this new material is a semiconductor. So it could be useful in solar cells and photoelectrics.
Date: 14 sep
Source: https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwab140/6342164
