Question: What is the strongest material you have tested?

George Fulton answered on 13 Mar 2019:

In materials science, “strong” is a measure of resistance to permanent stretching. An elastic band is not very strong because you can permanently deform it by hand. Interestingly, the strongest materials aren’t metals but ceramics. Ceramics are the same class of materials as what mugs are made out of 🙂 One of the strongest is synthetic diamond, that’s diamond that we can make. You get to use and test diamond a lot as a materials scientist because of these properties. Diamonds are very strong and therefore are great for cutting tools.

There are stronger materials though. Metallic glasses are a special and new form of materials. These are disordered metals – the atoms aren’t where they are meant to be – and these are also very strong. We call this ‘non-equilibrium’, which roughly translates as ‘not very stable’. They are used in high end golf clubs, if you want to get your hands on some of it 🙂

Obviously graphene is also very strong, but it would never be used as a structural component by itself. Possibly as a composite in the future, if you’d like to know why, then send me through another question!