World’s hardest material, diamond, is flexible

The research team demonstrated that diamond nano-needles can be bent and stretched up to nine per cent, before bouncing back to their original state when pressure is removed.

This discovery may lead to new applications in bioimaging and biosensing, drug delivery, data storage, opto-electronic devices and ultra-strength nanostructures. Using elastic strains induced by mechanical deformation, such as bending, also opens up new avenues to tailor electrical, magnetic, optical and other physical properties

Published today (20 Apr) in the journal Science, the finding was made by an interdisciplinary team whose senior author is Prof Subra Suresh, President and also Distinguished University Professor at NTU Singapore.