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Q-Carbon Is Harder (and Brighter) Than Diamond
- cjensen 11y agoThe article says "emits a soft glow". Since that's impossible for something which isn't radioactive, I assume the reporter misunderstood something. What property of the material were they referring to?
- OopsCriticality 11y ago> The article says "emits a soft glow". Since that's impossible for something which isn't radioactive… Not at all true. In this case, it could be a phosphorescence or fluorescence process (the NYT says fluorescence), initiated by ambient light. I skimmed both scholarly publications on this material but didn't find any mention of optical properties. I would ordinarily guess that any optical emission would involve an internal defect site (as happens with other optically-active diamond structures), but I'm thinking that's not a good guess given the synthesis process and overall quality of the monocrystalline product. A better guess might be some sort of "deep trap" emission involving surface defects.
- nikdaheratik 11y agoAccording to the NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/science/q-carbon-harder-than-diamond.html http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/03/science/q-carbon-harder-th... The substence is "magnetic, fluorescent and electroconductive" so likely it's referring to the fluorescent property and it had an electric current running through it during the demo.