Plastics shocked with a high-energy laser generate nanodiamonds with a range of technological applications. (Image credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)
Using ultrapowerful lasers, scientists have blasted cheap plastic and transformed it into tiny "nanodiamonds" — and, in doing so, confirmed the existence of an exotic new type of water. .
The findings could potentially reveal the existence of diamond rain on ice giants in our solar system and explain why these frigid worlds have such strange magnetic fields. The laser-blasting technique could also lead to more Earthly applications.
Nanodiamonds are diamonds that measure just a few nanometers, or billionths of a meter. They have both existing and potential applications, such as turning carbon dioxide into other gases and delivering drugs into the body, study co-author Dominik Kraus, a physicist at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf in Germany, told Live Science. READ MORE...
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