Stishovite
From apm
Revision as of 10:01, 21 June 2020 by Apm (Talk | contribs) (added note on substitution possibly increasing thermodynamic stability)
Just like like common quartz stishovite is a polymorph of silicon dioxide (SiO2).
It may be of peculiar interest because of:
- its high hardness (mohs 8.5 to 9.5) compared to quartz (mohs 7 - defining mineral)
- it consisting of the two globally (and often locally) most common elements in earth crust
- it still featuring a reasonably simple (tetragonal) crystal structure with the rutile structure
Given both stishovite and rutile feature the same crystal structure it may be possible to mechanosynthesize checkerboard neo-polymorphic transitions by replacing some Si with with Ti in a regular pattern.
Stishovite is a metastable compound (like diamond and lonsdaleite but even harder to reach by non mechanosynthetic means) A substitution of Si with Ti (if possible in greater quantities) may (or may not) increase the stability against conversion back into more thermodynamically stable polymorphs such as quartz at higher temperatures.
