In a surprising achievement, a team of scientists has turned diamond into graphite, using an X-ray laser. What may seem undesirable at first glance, is a decisive step forward in understanding the fundamental behaviour of solids when they absorb energetic radiation. For the first time, the researchers around Franz Tavella from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the US, Sven Toleikis from DESY and Beata Ziaja from DESY and the Institute of Nuclear Physics in Krakow were able to follow the graphitization in a time-resolved manner. “In addition to these fundamental aspects, understanding the graphitization process is important for diamond-based technologies, since diamond is increasingly used for practical applications,” the scientists write in the journal High Energy Density Physics.