Ultra Hard Materials

ULTRA HARD MATERIALS

Diamond is the hardest material known to every one. But with most applications such as drilling diamonds must be replaced after each use which will be more expensive.

Scientists at UCLA have created a low-cost material that rivals diamonds strength called the rhenim diboride which has been made from a relatively low-cost material osmium with rhenium , a fairly dense soft material that is next to osmium on periodic table . Richard B.Kaner a UCLA professor of inorganic chemistry and materials science and engineering says his team made the material ULTRA-INCOMPRESSIBLE (resistant to shape-deformation-a necessary condition for hardness) by finding metals that all already incompressible and working to harden them. The scientist have tested the metals properties by heating it in a furnace to achieve a powder (upper right) and bonding it through arc-melting(right). The material can be used for oil drills, scratch resistant coatings for precision instruments or computer cases and watch faces.