Featured Image Credit: University of Oxford
Topics: Money, Science, Technology
Kit Roberts
Diamonds may be a girl's best friend but it turns out the most expensive substance in the world isn't what you might think it would be.
Gold and diamonds may be what springs to mind when you think of the world's most valuable substances however, it's actually a substance in the form of a powder which reigns far superior.
Truffles, saffron and caviar may be up there too, with industrial materials such as platinum and tritium coming with a hefty price tag as well and let's not lie, when you read 'powder' there's not denying your mind considered more illicit substances too.
However, not even the substances in their more powdered forms have a patch on a material which can sell for as much as $140 million per gram.
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Well, rather than being called something easy to say - although realistically, how many of us are ever going to need to say it, it's not exactly like we can afford it now is it? - it's been given the catchy name of 'Nitrogen Atom-Based Endohedral Fullerenes'.
Well, it's because of what the material could be used for in the future, or rather what technology it might enable us to develop.
You see, Nitrogen Atom-Based Endohedral Fullerenes has the potential to be used to create very small highly accurate atomic clocks.
Atomic clocks are a crucial part of how GPS systems work, making them hugely important to navigation.
The problem is that at the moment atomic clocks are rather large, we're talking the size of a room.
But using Nitrogen Atom-Based Endohedral Fullerenes could help to make current atomic clocks look like the old IBM computers next to a modern smartphone.
That could have massive implications for how we use atomic clocks as well, expanding their use beyond navigation.
A small enough atomic clock could be used to pinpoint the location of something extremely accurately, as well as eliminating GPS blind spots by having an on-board atomic clock.
Nitrogen Atom-Based Endohedral Fullerenes has been developed by Oxford scientists at Designer Carbon Materials and they reckon that in the future even smartphones could have an atomic clock inside them.
Interestingly the name of the material, specifically the 'fullerenes' part, is directly related to its structure.
This is a 'cage' of carbon atoms with a nitrogen atom inside them.
The name 'fullerene' refers to this 'cage' and is a nod to architect and philosopher Richard Buckminster Fuller, who was known for his designs featuring distinctive interlocking triangles in a geodesic dome.