{"id":1091,"date":"2013-10-15T18:33:41","date_gmt":"2013-10-15T18:33:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/?p=1091"},"modified":"2013-11-04T20:43:03","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T20:43:03","slug":"new-material-dents-diamonds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/new-material-dents-diamonds\/","title":{"rendered":"New Material Dents Diamonds"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"imageBlock\">\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-post-feature wp-image-1092\" alt=\"20120816liandzeng_SM\" src=\"http:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/20120816liandzeng_SM-900x600.jpg\" width=\"900\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/20120816liandzeng_SM-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/20120816liandzeng_SM-450x300.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Hui Li and Xiao Cheng Zeng<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Diamonds are the hardest known material \u2212 at least they used to be. A research team that included UNL\u2019s Xiao Cheng Zeng, Ameritas University Professor of Chemistry, has created a new form of matter so hard it can even dent diamonds. The recipe involves crushing buckyballs, well-ordered carbon structures resembling nano-sized soccer balls, under extremely high pressure. The magic ingredient is a solvent related to benzene that allows the buckyballs to collapse while maintaining an ordered structure. Zeng and postdoctoral researcher Hui Li used supercomputers at UNL\u2019s Holland Computing Center and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to perform large-scale quantum molecular dynamics simulations to provide atomic insight into the material. The ability to preserve the super-hard, high-pressure structure in ambient conditions may provide important future practical applications, Zeng said. The discovery was reported in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencemag.org\/content\/337\/6096\/825.full?sid=3a84fea9-fbd7-46f9-bd30-46d5ee0c256c\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Science<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hui Li and Xiao Cheng Zeng Diamonds are the hardest known material \u2212 at least they used to be. A research team that included UNL\u2019s Xiao Cheng Zeng, Ameritas University Professor of Chemistry, has created a new form of matter &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/new-material-dents-diamonds\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[73,628,509,510,414,508],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1091"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1425,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1091\/revisions\/1425"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.unl.edu\/annualreport\/2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}