The search for new nanostructural topologies composed of elemental carbon is driven by technological opportunities as well as the need to understand the structure and evolution of carbon materials formed by planetary shock impact events and in laboratory syntheses. We describe two new families of diamond-graphene (diaphite) phases constructed from layered and bonded sp3 and sp2 nanostructural units and provide a framework for classifying the members of this new class of materials. The nanocomposite structures are identified within both natural impact diamonds and laboratory-shocked samples and possess diffraction features that have previously been assigned to lonsdaleite and postgraphite phases. The diaphite nanocomposites represent a new class of high-performance carbon materials that are predicted to combine the superhard qualities of diamond with high fracture toughness and ductility enabled by the graphitic units and the atomically defined interfaces between the sp3- and sp2-bonded nanodomains.

The concept of the phonon-mode Grüneisen tensor is reviewed as method to determine the elastic strains across crystals from the changes in the wavenumbers of Raman-active phonon modes relative to an unstrained crystal. The symmetry constraints on the phonon-mode Grüneisen tensor are discussed and the consequences for which combinations of strains can be determined by this method are stated. A computer program for Windows, stRAinMAN, has been written to calculate strains from changes in Raman (or other phonon) mode wavenumbers, and vice-versa. It can be downloaded for free from www.rossangel.net.

Complex nanostructures in diamondMeteoritic diamonds formed during bolide impacts on Earth and diamond-related materials synthesized by compressing graphite contain a wide variety of complex nanostructures. This Comment highlights and classifies this structural complexity by a systematic hierarchical approach, and discusses the perspectives on nanostructure and properties engineering of diamond-related materials.