In 2009, a theoretical simulation predicted wurtzite boron nitride had an indentation strength higher than diamond. Now, researchers in China and Saudi Arabia experimentally measured wBN’s hardness—and found it much closer to cubic boron nitride instead.
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Most bioglasses, especially the popular 45S5, form weak scaffolds prone to cracking because they do not sinter to full density. Researchers looked to understand the factors hindering densification.
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Magnonics, an emerging field of magnetism, could provide an alternative method of data manipulation to silicon electronics. Researchers from universities in Russia, the Netherlands, and Germany developed a superconducting/ferromagnetic material for magnonic applications.
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Phase change materials are an excellent way to store data—if you know how to effectively switch between the material’s glassy and crystal states. Researchers at the University of Arizona and RWTH Aachen University discovered unlike most glasses, the PCM Ge2Sb2Te5 can switch directly from glassy to crystal without entering the liquid phase.
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Rust is commonly considered a problem to be suppressed. Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and Northwestern University instead show rust can be beneficial when used to generate electricity.
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A main shortcoming of oxide glasses is that they are brittle. Researchers in Denmark and the United States found they could increase the crack resistance of such glasses enormously by subjecting the glass surface to humid aging.
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Exploratory synthesis of nitride materials can be a time-consuming and risky venture. A new map of ternary metal nitrides gives scientists a good idea of where to look for new nitrides.
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Researchers hoped graphene would prove an ideal material for terahertz-range lasers, but those hopes were dashed in the early 2010s. Now, researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology propose Weyl semimetals, a 3D analogue of graphene, could be the answer.
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Though discovering new elements beyond the 118 confirmed will be difficult, there are abundant opportunities for isotope discovery. The first new isotope confirmed in 2019 is oxygen-11, the lightest-ever form of oxygen to date.
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While researching the structure of sulfur-selenium glasses, University of California, Davis researchers discovered something exciting—these glasses are flexible in bulk form!
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