“Amorphous silica-like carbon dioxide”, a paper in the 15 June 2006 edition of the scientific journal Nature, describes a new glass-like material called Carbonia, in which silicon atoms have been repl…
“Amorphous silica-like carbon dioxide”, a paper in the 15 June 2006 edition of the scientific journal Nature, describes a new glass-like material called Carbonia, in which silicon atoms have been replaced with carbon. Carbonia was created by a team of scientists from the material physics research centre CNR-INFM “SOFT” at the Sapienza University of Rome, in collaboration with physicists from LENS (European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy) in Florence, and with contributions from CNR-INFM “Democritos” of Trieste. The scientists, led by Professors Mario Santoro and Federico Gorelli of the University of Florence, heated solid carbon dioxide at 500,000 times atmospheric pressure. The scientists next goal is to stabilize carbonia at ambient conditions, which could lead to the application of carbonia as a ultra-hard glass and as a coating for microelectronic devices. “Carbonia-based minerals and glasses could give rise to useful technological materials, if we can recover them to ambient conditions,” said Professor Paul McMillan, of University College London, in Nature.