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Scientists have created a new form of carbon called diamondiyne. It is a three-dimensional network of carbon atoms that resembles a diamond but with a more open structure. Scientists often pursue research like this in order to discover what forms matter can take and how the ways in which their atoms are arranged control their properties as a material. By extension, synthesising the new allotrope has reinforced the notion that scientists can potentially create materials with radically different properties but without changing their chemical composition. The cage-like structure of diamondiyne also offers the additional prospect of containing other atoms within.
Because one of its chemical building blocks is unstable and because if the bonds do not connect properly in the process of making it, they can be difficult to undo, scientists took so long to create this allotrope. Because while diamond is extremely hard and an electrical insulator, graphite is soft and conducts electricity, yet both are allotropes of the same element, carbon in particular poses an interesting case. Synthesising diamondiyne confirms to scientists that the prediction more than 30 years ago was correct, which in turn validates the process scientists used to make that prediction.
Finally, the technique by which the team synthesised the material could help researchers make other previously inaccessible materials with useful properties.
