A theoretical method could aid in the design of nanocrystalline metal alloys that retain their unusual properties, such as remarkable strength, at high temperatures.
Nanostructured metals, which are made up of individual metal grains less than 100 nanometres in size, are often unstable at high temperatures owing to instabilities arising from the boundaries between grains. Christopher Schuh and his colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge developed a theoretical framework for predicting the energy associated with the grain boundaries. The researchers designed and produced an alloy of titanium and tungsten that turned out to be more stable at high temperatures than pure nanocrystalline tungsten, and that could be processed in bulk.