According to a new paper, scientists have created an ultra-tough substance as strong as diamonds, and they say it could even be used to make spacecraft and cars stronger.

Their findings are published in the science journal Advanced Materials. The research team is made up of various members that hail from Europe, Russia, and North America, and they have synthesized an organic semiconductor carbon nitride that is harder than cubic boron nitride, a crystalline material second only to diamonds in terms of its hardness. There are, obviously, several possible uses for an ultra-tough substance like this. Additionally, the possibility that a variety of carbon nitrides like this might even exist was first predicted in the 1980s. However, scientists have spent decades trying and failing to create the fabled substance. Now, though, it seems a massive breakthrough has finally taken place.