OREANDA-NEWS. Materials scientists from Yanshan University of China and their colleagues from other countries have invented a new transparent material with extraordinary strength. It also has semiconductor properties. An article about this was published in the scientific journal National Science Review.

According to the South China Morning Post, the transparent material offers some exciting opportunities in the field of photoelectronics.

Called AM-III, the new material bears similarities to diamond. As the authors of the work found out, a special ordered-disordered structure gives the new material its special properties. Disorder provides better semiconductor properties than silicon, and order provides diamond hardness.

The South China Morning Post notes that different groups of scientists around the world are competing with each other to create superhard materials. At the same time, the material AM-III was born as a result of international cooperation. Scientists from Russia, Sweden, USA and Germany took part in the experiment, carried out in China.

The new AM-III material is transparent, yellowish and withstands 113 GPa in Vickers hardness tests. For comparison, "soft" steel exhibits a Vickers hardness of about 9 GPa, and natural diamonds about 70-100 GPa.

When testing the mechanical properties, the amorphous material AM-III was able to scratch the surface of the diamond. The semiconducting properties of AM-III are expressed in the form of a band gap of 1.5–2 eV and are similar to those of silicon.

The combination of outstanding electrical and mechanical properties makes the AM-III attractive for photovoltaic technology devices that convert light into electricity. Including weapons that must function under extreme conditions - high pressure and temperature, the South China Morning Post emphasizes.