The hardest known oxide
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Open Access
- 5 April 2001
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Springer Science and Business Media LLC in Nature
- Vol. 410 (6829), 653-654
- https://doi.org/10.1038/35070650
Abstract
A material as hard as diamond or cubic boron nitride has yet to be identified1,2,3,4,5,6, but here we report the discovery of a cotunnite-structured titanium oxide which represents the hardest oxide known. This is a new polymorph of titanium dioxide, where titanium is nine-coordinated to oxygen in the cotunnite (PbCl2) structure. The phase is synthesized at pressures above 60 gigapascals (GPa) and temperatures above 1,000 K and is one of the least compressible and hardest polycrystalline materials to be described.Keywords
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