JAPANESE scientists have created what is believed to be the worlds hardest diamond. The cylindrical-shaped diamond was synthesised by a team of researchers at Ehime University. The diamond - called the Hime, Japanese for princess - was created as part of a collaboration between scientists and Sumitomo Electric Industries, which hopes to start selling the diamonds as early as next year. Hailed as the hardest artificial diamond on the world, it is significantly stronger than normal diamonds enabling it to be used in an array of industrial activities, according to its creator Tetsuo Irifune. A large Hime diamond is useful for experiments to study the high- pressure deep interior of the Earth, he told Kyodo News. Also, as a product for industrial use its lifetime is several times longer than that of an ordinary diamond. The newly unveiled diamond is a more sophisticated and bigger version of a similar diamond the same scientists first synthesised in 2003. Telegraph