Strong materials, such as ceramics, are often brittle and prone to snapping - but those that deform gracefully under tension, such as metals, are weaker.Now, Dongchan Jang and Julia Greer from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena have overcome this trade-oflF with zirconium-based metallic glasses - alloys that are formed of disordered metal atoms and that can be moulded when heated. They show that when the material is reduced in size to pillars measuring 100 nanometres in diameter, it assumes both a metal-like ductility and a ceramic-like strength.
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