On November 23, 2017 (October 6, 2017 in the lunar calendar), the T-carbon predicted by my scientists came out. Carbon atoms are miraculous, and can not only form the softest mineral graphite in the world, but also the hardest substance in nature, diamond. Recently, scientists in our country have made breakthroughs in the research of carbon atoms: a three-dimensional carbon structure predicted by Professor Su Gang of the School of Physics of the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences through theoretical calculations, T-carbon (T-carbon) was born. A joint research team of Chinese and foreign scientists successfully synthesized T-carbon, thus making T-carbon another three-dimensional new structure of carbon that can be compared with graphite and diamond. On November 23, 2017, Su Gang said that T-carbon is a fluffy carbon material with a large available space inside. If it is used as an energy storage material, its hydrogen storage capacity percentage by weight is not less than 7.7%. Su Gang believes that T-carbon will have a wide range of application prospects in the fields of photocatalysis, adsorption, energy storage, aerospace materials, etc. Since the 1980s, scientists have been very interested in obtaining new structures of carbon and have given birth to two Nobel Prizes. This has not only had a huge impact in related fields such as chemistry, physics, materials and information science, but also spawned a large number of applications in industry and technology. Based on these structures, scientists have synthesized many new derivatives and made new functional devices and related products. Carbon atoms have four valence electrons, and after orbital hybridization (some atomic orbitals with relatively close energy are recombined into new atomic orbitals), it is like four hands, with a strong ability to combine with itself and other elements. Carbon can form sp2 hybrid graphene, sp3 hybrid diamond, sp-sp2 hybrid graphyne, sp-sp3 hybrid diamond alkyne. "Chemically, carbon can be combined with other elements to form DNA, proteins and other important biological macromolecules, making carbon one of the most basic elements for life on Earth," Su Gang said. In 2011, Su Gang, a doctoral student, Sheng Xianlei, and others proposed through a large number of comparative studies that if each carbon atom in cubic diamond is replaced by a tetrahedral structural unit composed of four carbon atoms, a new three-dimensional cubic crystal structure of carbon will be formed. They found that this structure is extremely stable in terms of geometry, energy, and dynamics based on first-principles studies of density functional. They named this new type of carbon allotrope T-carbon. The research shows that T-carbon has the same space group as diamond and is a semiconductor with a direct band gap. The band gap can be regulated by doping to be suitable for photocatalysis. T-carbon also has a distinctive feature, the density is very small, about 2/3 of that of graphite and half of that of diamond. Su Gang and others found that T-carbon may be more easily formed in a negative pressure environment through calculations. T-carbon may be observed in cosmic interstellar dust or extrasolar planets. Industry experts spoke highly of the discovery of T-carbon, believing that "T-carbon opens a new era of carbon structure research, which will inspire other scientists to conduct extensive theoretical and experimental research". Can T-carbon be synthesized in the laboratory? Su Gang has been committed to promoting the experimental synthesis of T-carbon in recent years. In early 2017, a joint research team from Xi'an Jiaotong University and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore successfully achieved the transition from sp2 to sp3 chemical bonds under conditions of extreme deviation from thermodynamic equilibrium by irradiating multi-walled carbon nanotubes suspended in methanol solution with picosecond lasers. The new carbon material formed was completely consistent with the theoretical prediction of T-carbon, proving that T-carbon was synthesized. The experimental results on the synthesis of T-carbon were recently published in Nature Communications.