ARGONNE, Ill. (August 30, 2005) – Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have combined the world's hardest known material – diamond – with the world's strongest structural form – carbon nanotubes. This new process for “growing” diamond and carbon nanotubes together opens the way for its use in a number of energy-related applications.

The technique is the first successful synthesis of a diamond-nanotube nanocomposite, which means for the first time this specialized material has been produced at the nanometer size – one-millionth of a millimeter, or thousands of times smaller than the period at the end of this sentence.

The result established for the first time a process for making these materials a reality, setting the stage for several fundamental advances in the field of nanostructured carbon materials.