Metalworkers and metallurgists have long appreciated the ability to tailor the performance characteristics of steel (an alloy of iron and carbon), including their strength, hardness, ductility and ...

A metal is comprised of many individual crystals, or grains. These crystals are held together by electrons in the same way that electrons hold the atoms within each crystal together. For more on this ...

Crystal structure for layered transition metal oxide cathode materials, showing the arrangement of lithium and transition metal cations across separate layers. Journalists may use this image only with ...

For decades, cobalt has served as a benchmark ferromagnet. Its crystal structure and magnetic properties have been extensively documented. However, the new findings show that cobalt hosts a rich ...

Every crystal's shape is a mirror of the internal arrangement of its molecules, but the molecules in photoswitchable crystals can expand, twist and change properties—from their color to their ...

When a liquid metal cools and turns into a solid, its atoms come together to form crystals. The structure of these crystals is not perfect. Sometimes an extra layer of atoms squeezes between other ...