Stishovite (after Sergey M. Stishov, a renowned Russian high-pressure physicist who first synthesized this mineral) is an extremely hard, dense tetragonal form (polymorph) of silicon dioxide. It was long considered the hardest known oxide; however, boron suboxide has recently been discovered to be much harder. At normal temperature and pressure, stishovite is metastable, as it will eventually decay to quartz; however, this phase change is slow enough that it has never been observed. Stishovite was first found in nature and named after Stishov (who synthesized it earlier the same year) by Edward C. T. Chao.

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