{"id":18405,"date":"2015-12-07T15:49:33","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T15:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:35:55","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T05:05:55","slug":"q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man","status":"publish","type":"research","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man","title":{"rendered":"Q-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Diamond is considered to be the hardest material known to man. However, a newly discovered substance named Q-carbon has claimed the title of being the hardest material formed from carbon. A team of researchers at North Carolina State University, headed by Jagdish Narayan, focused a very short pulse of laser light onto carbon for 200 nanoseconds and then cooled it down, a process that is called quenching. This yielded minuscule synthetic diamond \u201cseeds\u201d of Q-carbon from which the researchers were able to make gems. Remarkably, the process is easy and can be used to produce Q-carbon on\u00a0<\/span>a large scale<\/span>; \u201cIn 15 minutes, we can make a carat of diamonds,\u201d Mr. Narayan said. Q-carbon possesses the properties of magnetism, florescence, and electro conductivity, and has potential applications in deep sea drilling, creating synthetic body parts, and producing screens for television and cellphones. While it is not known if this substance exists naturally on the planet, Mr. Narayan believes that it might exist at the core of planets. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more in New York Times<\/a><\/em> and Science News<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33313,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"new_tags":[],"series":[],"subject":[2877],"class_list":["post-18405","research","type-research","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","subject-chemistryandmaterialsscience"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nQ-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Diamond is considered to be the hardest material known to man. However, a newly discovered substance named Q-carbon has claimed the title of being the hardest material formed from carbon. A team of researchers at North Carolina State University, headed by Jagdish Narayan, focused a very short pulse of laser light onto carbon for 200 nanoseconds and then cooled it down, a process that is called quenching. This yielded minuscule synthetic diamond \u201cseeds\u201d of Q-carbon from which the researchers were able to make gems. Read more about their research here.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Q-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man | Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Diamond is considered to be the hardest material known to man. However, a newly discovered substance named Q-carbon has claimed the title of being the hardest material formed from carbon. A team of researchers at North Carolina State University, headed by Jagdish Narayan, focused a very short pulse of laser light onto carbon for 200 nanoseconds and then cooled it down, a process that is called quenching. This yielded minuscule synthetic diamond \u201cseeds\u201d of Q-carbon from which the researchers were able to make gems. Read more about their research here.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Editage Insights\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Editage\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-22T05:05:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/editage-insights-generic-banner.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"870\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"446\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Editage\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man\",\"name\":\"Q-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man | Editage Insights\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2015-12-07T15:49:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-22T05:05:55+00:00\",\"description\":\"Diamond is considered to be the hardest material known to man. However, a newly discovered substance named Q-carbon has claimed the title of being the hardest material formed from carbon. A team of researchers at North Carolina State University, headed by Jagdish Narayan, focused a very short pulse of laser light onto carbon for 200 nanoseconds and then cooled it down, a process that is called quenching. This yielded minuscule synthetic diamond \u201cseeds\u201d of Q-carbon from which the researchers were able to make gems. Read more about their research here.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp\",\"width\":656,\"height\":336},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Researchs\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Q-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/\",\"name\":\"Editage Insights\",\"description\":\"\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Editage Insights\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/editage-insights-logo-1-scaled.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/editage-insights-logo-1-scaled.webp\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":324,\"caption\":\"Editage Insights\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Editage\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/Editage\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Q-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man | Editage Insights","description":"Diamond is considered to be the hardest material known to man. However, a newly discovered substance named Q-carbon has claimed the title of being the hardest material formed from carbon. A team of researchers at North Carolina State University, headed by Jagdish Narayan, focused a very short pulse of laser light onto carbon for 200 nanoseconds and then cooled it down, a process that is called quenching. This yielded minuscule synthetic diamond \u201cseeds\u201d of Q-carbon from which the researchers were able to make gems. Read more about their research here.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Q-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man | Editage Insights","og_description":"Diamond is considered to be the hardest material known to man. However, a newly discovered substance named Q-carbon has claimed the title of being the hardest material formed from carbon. A team of researchers at North Carolina State University, headed by Jagdish Narayan, focused a very short pulse of laser light onto carbon for 200 nanoseconds and then cooled it down, a process that is called quenching. This yielded minuscule synthetic diamond \u201cseeds\u201d of Q-carbon from which the researchers were able to make gems. Read more about their research here.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man","og_site_name":"Editage Insights","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Editage","article_modified_time":"2025-09-22T05:05:55+00:00","og_image":[{"width":870,"height":446,"url":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/editage-insights-generic-banner.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_site":"@Editage","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man","url":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man","name":"Q-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man | Editage Insights","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp","datePublished":"2015-12-07T15:49:33+00:00","dateModified":"2025-09-22T05:05:55+00:00","description":"Diamond is considered to be the hardest material known to man. However, a newly discovered substance named Q-carbon has claimed the title of being the hardest material formed from carbon. A team of researchers at North Carolina State University, headed by Jagdish Narayan, focused a very short pulse of laser light onto carbon for 200 nanoseconds and then cooled it down, a process that is called quenching. This yielded minuscule synthetic diamond \u201cseeds\u201d of Q-carbon from which the researchers were able to make gems. Read more about their research here.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/editage-insights-generic-banner_298.webp","width":656,"height":336},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/q-carbon-replaces-diamond-as-the-hardest-material-known-to-man#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Researchs","item":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Q-carbon replaces diamond as the hardest material known to man"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/","name":"Editage Insights","description":"","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#organization","name":"Editage Insights","url":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/editage-insights-logo-1-scaled.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/editage-insights-logo-1-scaled.webp","width":2560,"height":324,"caption":"Editage Insights"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Editage","https:\/\/x.com\/Editage"]}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research\/18405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/research"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research\/18405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"new_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/new_tags?post=18405"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=18405"},{"taxonomy":"subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/subject?post=18405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}