Partially ordered carbon aggregates which are harder than diamond and produced by compressing fullerites have been known for a few decades and are usually group

Partially ordered carbon aggregates which are harder than diamond and produced by compressing fullerites have been known for a few decades and are usually grouped under the heading "aggregated diamond nanorods" or recently "nanodiamond": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregated_diamond_nanorods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregated_diamond_nanorods This paper seems to be a step forward, in obtaining a very hard, truly amorphous material. Unfortunately, it is not likely that this will lead to mass-production any time soon, since the synthesis is achieved at 25 GPa, or in familiar terms, about 250,000 atmospheres: https://watermark.silverchair.com/nwab140.pdf https://watermark.silverchair.com/nwab140.pdf