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Japanese researchers claimed on Thursday they had successfully made the world's hardest artificial diamond from graphite.
Tetsuo Irifune, professor of Geology at Ehime University in western Japan, said in a statement that his research group synthesized a so-called polycrystalline diamond with special equipment.
Irifune said his research group heated graphite to a range between 1,800 and 2,500 C (3,272 and 4532 F) with the equipment for about five minutes, compared with 1,500 and 1,800 C (2,732 and 3,272 F) in conventional methods of synthesizing diamonds.
Researchers also applied greater than usual pressure on the graphite in the heating process, which resulted in one to three millimetres of polycrystalline diamond.
The artificial diamond, twice as hard as conventional polycrystalline one, is the hardest ever diamond synthesized so far in the world, the researcher said.
The diamond is expected to be used as a grinder of natural diamonds and a blade to drill rocks, he said.
Irifune said the results would be published in today's edition of the British science magazine Nature.
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