New technique sharpens predictions of metal alloy behavior by capturing subtle atomic patterns

Companies working at the frontier of aerospace, energy and computing are constantly looking for new materials to improve performance.

But in order to understand how those materials will actually behave once they're inside rockets or on computer chips, companies first have to make the material and then test it.

That's because even the most powerful simulation techniques struggle to model the complex chemical arrangements in most of today's solid materials.

The problem adds cost and time to materials innovation. ...