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They used a piece of equipment that squishes stuff between two flattened surfaces of diamonds. And by using just graphite, they carefully and incrementally compressed the material and fixed the carbon atoms into place by using a laser. At 200,000 atmospheres, an atmosphere on Earth here at sea level 14.7 pounds to a square inch, the carbon layers at that point started to slide along with other layers. And this formed a structure with the properties of a hexagonal diamond. And they then very slowly released the pressure in order to stop the new substance from returning to graphite. They will need a large sample to confirm that it's harder than diamonds, and it is at least as hard, it's expected it's harder by about 58%, but they know for sure right now it is at least as hard.