Ultrahard bulk amorphous carbon from collapsed fullerene

Yuchen Shang, Zhaodong Liu, Jiajun Dong, Mingguang Yao (), Zhenxing Yang, Quanjun Li, Chunguang Zhai, Fangren Shen, Xuyuan Hou, Lin Wang, Nianqiang Zhang, Wei Zhang, Rong Fu, Jianfeng Ji, Xingmin Zhang, He Lin, Yingwei Fei, Bertil Sundqvist, Weihua Wang and Bingbing Liu ()
Additional contact information
Yuchen Shang: Jilin University
Zhaodong Liu: Jilin University
Jiajun Dong: Jilin University
Mingguang Yao: Jilin University
Zhenxing Yang: Jilin University
Quanjun Li: Jilin University
Chunguang Zhai: Jilin University
Fangren Shen: Jilin University
Xuyuan Hou: Jilin University
Lin Wang: Carnegie Institution for Science
Nianqiang Zhang: Harbin Institute of Technology
Wei Zhang: Jilin University
Rong Fu: Shanghai University
Jianfeng Ji: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Xingmin Zhang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
He Lin: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Yingwei Fei: Carnegie Institution for Science
Bertil Sundqvist: Jilin University
Weihua Wang: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Bingbing Liu: Jilin University

Nature, 2021, vol. 599, issue 7886, 599-604

Abstract: Abstract Amorphous materials inherit short- and medium-range order from the corresponding crystal and thus preserve some of its properties while still exhibiting novel properties1,2. Due to its important applications in technology, amorphous carbon with sp2 or mixed sp2–sp3 hybridization has been explored and prepared3,4, but synthesis of bulk amorphous carbon with sp3 concentration close to 100% remains a challenge. Such materials inherit the short-/medium-range order of diamond and should also inherit its superior properties5. Here, we successfully synthesized millimetre-sized samples—with volumes 103–104 times as large as produced in earlier studies—of transparent, nearly pure sp3 amorphous carbon by heating fullerenes at pressures close to the cage collapse boundary. The material synthesized consists of many randomly oriented clusters with diamond-like short-/medium-range order and possesses the highest hardness (101.9 ± 2.3 GPa), elastic modulus (1,182 ± 40 GPa) and thermal conductivity (26.0 ± 1.3 W m−1 K−1) observed in any known amorphous material. It also exhibits optical bandgaps tunable from 1.85 eV to 2.79 eV. These discoveries contribute to our knowledge about advanced amorphous materials and the synthesis of bulk amorphous materials by high-pressure and high-temperature techniques and may enable new applications for amorphous solids.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03882-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:599:y:2021:i:7886:d:10.1038_s41586-021-03882-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03882-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().