Scientists at Oxford University have created the world’s most expensive material and recently sold a sample one third the weight of a human hair for a whopping £22,000.

Made in a spin-off lab called Designer Carbon Materials, the endohedral fullerenes are spherical carbon molecules.

The nanostructures are by no means new, they were first discovered way back in 1985, but they are now being used in atomic clocks to make the timepieces more accurate than ever before.

While super-accurate atomic clocks are currently huge, cabinet-sized devices, it is hoped that in future, tiny versions can be integrated into GPS devices.

This would improve accuracy down to 1mm, while the current margin of error is up to 5m.

It is hoped that if the technology can be shrunk down to the size of a Microchip, it could be used in smartphones.

Designer Carbon Materials founder and nanomaterials scientist Dr Kyriakos Porfyrakis, said to the The Telegraph: “Imagine a miniaturised atomic clock that you could carry around in your smartphone. This is the next revolution for mobile.”

Image credit: University of Oxford