New carbon structure is strongest yet, but may not be creatable

BBC : Carbyne is a chain of carbon atoms held together by either double or alternating single and triple bonds. If it could be created in bulk, it would have remarkable properties. Calculations by Boris Yakobson of Rice University in Houston, Texas, and his colleagues suggest that carbyne’s tensile strength—the amount of stretching it can withstand—would be the highest of any known material. It would be double the tensile strength of the current strongest material, graphene, which is a sheetlike, hexagonal arrangement of carbon atoms. Their calculations also show that carbyne would be twice as strong as graphene when resisting forces that are directed to the surface of the material rather than to the ends or edges. Carbyne also appears to have the potential to be a magnetic semiconductor and may have other interesting properties. However, only very small amounts of the substance are reported to have been created in the lab. And those samples have appeared to be very unstable: Some chemists suggest that two pieces of carbyne could react explosively if they touch each other.