Scientists have created the first sizable meteorite diamond — also known as lonsdaleite or hexagonal diamond — a material predicted to be even harder than the diamonds normally found on Earth. The ...

Hexagonal diamonds are formed when graphite is subjected to strong impact and heat, such as due to a meteorite impact. While ordinary diamond has a structure called cubic, hexagonal diamond is ...

Through high pressure processing techniques performed in a symmetric diamond anvil cell, a group of researchers from the Department of Geological Sciences at Stanford University have successfully ...

A team developed a new method for synthesizing a novel crystalline form of silicon with a hexagonal structure that could potentially be used to create next-generation electronic and energy devices ...

In chemistry, structure is everything. Compounds with the same chemical formula can have different properties depending on the arrangement of the molecules they’re made of. And compounds with a ...

Cubic core: what is the crystal structure of iron at the centre of the Earth? (Courtesy: shutterstock/Johan Swanepoel) A long-standing debate about the structure of solid iron at the centre of the ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. David Bressan is a geologist who covers curiosities about Earth. Currently, diamond is regarded to be one of the hardest and most ...