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Let's see what the actual journal article says. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6096/825.abstract?sid=... Long-Range Ordered Carbon Clusters: A Crystalline Material with Amorphous Building Blocks
Lin Wang, Bingbing Liu, Hui Li, Wenge Yang, Yang Ding, Stanislav V. Sinogeikin, Yue Meng, Zhenxian Liu, Xiao Cheng Zeng, and Wendy L. Mao
Science 17 August 2012: 337 (6096), 825-828. [DOI:10.1126/science.1220522] The Science editors also solicited a commentary http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6096/812.summary on the article. AFTER EDIT: As I read through the full-text article, it seems that the kind of nanoscale observations being reported in the article might be consistent with the "new" material simply being local, small-scale diamonds (the substrate material was carbon molecules, after all, before they were subjected to high pressure), being "as incompressible as diamond," as reported, for the unremarkable reason that it is diamond. But I will defer to someone who is more knowledgeable than I in materials science to see what other interpretation of the published article might make more sense. |
There are no small-scale diamonds present in the material. On the small scale, the material is a carbon glass (an unordered, or amorphous solid), distinct from diamond, which is an ordered crystal. Typically, high density glasses are stronger than crystals made from the same elements, so the strength of the material isn't particularly surprising, rather it's the processing of the new material that is novel.
It's also worth noting that this isn't even the first carbon-based material stronger than diamond. Lonsdaleite is a closely related structure that is significantly stronger. It is much less common, however, naturally occurring only in meteorites.