The Rhenium Diborides, an unexpected hard material

2007/07/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Materialak

There is no material harder than diamond, so it is used to drill or cut the rest of hard materials. But in some cases the diamond cannot be used and another hard material is needed. The second hardest is boron nitride, very useful, but difficult to do, since for it a very high pressure is needed. At the UCLA University, the United States, they have found a third ultra-fast material: rhenium diborides.

Rhenium diborides and boron nitride have a similar hardness, but there is an important difference: the first can be obtained in the laboratory without the need to use a lot of pressure. In fact, they have created it for other technological applications. It arose, but until now no one had measured hardness to the diboreal rhenium. The scientists announced through theoretical calculations that it should be a hard material and the prediction was very good. In some cases it also serves to work the diamond itself.