Accidental discoveries are wonderful things.
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Like the happenstance discovery of buckminsterfullerene (or "buckyballs")
in 1985, two researchers on a related quest have learned to grow large
super-hard crystals. Pulickel Ajayan and Ganapathiraman Ramanath of
Rensselaer Polytechnic in Troy, NY, were originally trying to create a
new kind of electrical conductor.
Using the same high-temperature process that produces buckyballs, the
experiment focused on a material called boron carbide. If their
experiment worked as they hoped, the restructured molecules of boron
carbide could be used to carry electrical current without any loss of
power over large distances -- a superconductor.
They found out however that their process could be used to grow
unnaturally large 20-sided crystals. These sorts of crystals appear
only rarely in nature, as their shape does not lend itself to
efficiently filling the surrounding space. That means the growing
crystals normally crush each other as they grew, until they broke up.
The new process seems to avoid that pitfall, allowing the crystals to
reach a larger size. Ajayan and Ramanath speculate the crystals could
be used to create super-tough coatings or other engineering materials.
Read more:
http://www.rpi.edu/web/News/press_releases/2002/ajayancyrstal.html
-- Robert Myers
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