Bendy bling: researchers make flexible diamonds

As one of the world’s hardest materials, we tend to think of diamond as rigid and unyielding. But scientists have succeeded in making diamond needles that are so thin they can bend under pressure.

Diamond is hard but also brittle, and attempts to deform even a small sliver usually result in fractures, rather than bending. But a research team based in Hong Kong and Singapore showed that it is possible to make bendy diamonds by producing tapering, 300nm-wide ‘needles’ of the material.