Professor Tian Yongjun and colleagues from Yanshan University in Qinhuangdao, northern China, have successfully used fullerene - carbon molecules that are nicknamed buckyballs after American architect Buckminster Fuller - to create a new glass material that is stronger than diamond.
The new material, called AM-III carbon, is a type of transparent glass with crystals. It is currently the world's hardest and strongest amorphous material, with a score of 113 gigapascals on the Vickers hardness test. In contrast, most natural diamonds are between 50 to 70, with some man-made diamonds reaching just 100 gigapascals. It is so hard that it could scratch diamonds easily.
Yongjun noted that AM-III is about ten times stronger than steel and should be able to stop bullets better than any bulletproof window material available today.