Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:A new alloy combines the best of the refractory metals with cutting-edge engineering. These kink bands add strength through subtle shifts in the crystal structure, reducing brittleness. In other words, if you’re trying to metalwork a refractory alloy into any kind of shape, it will break instead of bend. To do this, the Berkeley Lab scientists “specifically engineered” an alloy of niobium, tantalum, titanium, and hafnium, and formed kink bands in the metal. But in the alloy, researchers found that the kink bands resulted from dislocation tolerance—meaning deformability without breaking.