A paper in the June 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, Rome, in collaboration with physicists from LENS (European Laboratory for Non-linear Spectroscopy) in Florence, & with contributions from CNR-INFM "Democritos" of Trieste. The scientists, led by Prof Mario Santoro & 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 & as a coating for microelectronic devices. "Carbonia-based minerals & 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.
