A team of researchers from MIT, Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and the City University of Hong Kong have created small diamonds that can bend and stretch before turning back to their original shape. Natural diamonds are known to be the hardest material occurring in nature, and any attempt to bend them will result in breakage.
The research, which was published in the latest issue of Science, involved taking tiny artificial diamonds, shaped like needles, and etching nano-needles in them. By etching into these tiny diamonds, the scientists found that they can make the diamonds bend and stretch up to 9% without breakage. According to the scientists, this approaches the theoretical limit of diamond flexibility.
The breakthrough could have several implications: in the future, doctors will be able to use these nano-diamonds to deliver drugs into cancer cells. They could also be used to encode data in computer systems or improve the accuracy of MRI machines.
