Scientists have uncovered an unexpected way certain metals can withstand extreme cold without becoming dangerously brittle. The discovery challenges long-standing ideas about how metals behave at extremely low temperatures and could help engineers develop tougher materials for some of the harshest environments imaginable.
The findings, published October 14 in Nature, reveal a previously unknown microscopic process that allows two experimental metal alloys to remain remarkably resistant to damage at just 20 kelvin, or -253°C (-424°F). The research was led by an international team from the University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the University of Oxford.
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